The Prototype Shinobi
by PlagueXRoamer
Summary: After the nuclear bomb was stopped, Alex Mercer contemplates what to do in the Web of Intrigue until a stray memory from a consumed 'innocent' passed...Naruto/Prototype crossover. Set 3 years before Naruto and after Prototype ending. UNDERGOING REWRITE.
1. The End of a Beginning

After a long time of having an account on fanfiction(.)net, I have FINALLY decided to write a fic. Obviously this is my first try, so I don't know if it has a good standard, though I did make sure grammar and vocabulary was alright. Hope you all will enjoy this. Oh and this is set about 3 years before the start of Naruto and after the ending of Prototype. Minor spoilers (I think that's the way you say it) and after this prologue, it'll be Naruto from then on. Further chapters will also be in third person.

_"My name is Alex Mercer." _Web of Intrigue speech

_'My name is Alex Mercer.'_ Web of Intrigue thought

Disclaimer (first try): I do not own Naruto (Kishimoto's) or Prototype (Radical Entertainment's) so please, no lawyers.

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Prologue - The End of a Beginning

_My name is Alex Mercer. I'm the reason for all of this. They call me a killer, a monster, a terrorist. I'm all of these things…_

_Someone released a lethal virus in Penn Station; I woke up in a morgue. Now I hunt, I kill, I consume, I become. I'm gonna find out who did this to me, and I'm gonna make them pay…_

At least, that was my mission in the past. Now, two months after I started my search for vengeance, I've accomplished what I wanted, and now I have the information I needed. I am not Alex Mercer, but the Blacklight virus that took over his body. Ironic that he was the cause of the virus outbreak, releasing that sample of the virus before dying from gunfire, and his body was resurrected by the virus after it was brought to the morgue. That at least explained how I didn't have any memories when I woke up on the slab.

I stand on the rooftop of an abandoned apartment house, watching the sunrise in the horizon, while recovering from regenerating from the nuclear blast. It's a wonder how I managed to it, but I just passed it off as another mutation in my body, and another reason I am both more, and less than human…

Sighing, I consider my options. The threat of Blackwatch was over for now, but there may be some leftovers. I should make sure they are taken cared of. The world doesn't need another virus outbreak because of an experiment. Another could be seeing just HOW much I can evolve. Maybe I could travel the world; I could consume animals to gain some of their special traits, the same way I consumed those hunters to get my blade. Then after that, is there even a possibility for a normal life?

Deciding to go for my first option, I closed my eyes, delving into the large net of memories I called the Web of Intrigue, trying to find any possible traces to a hidden Blackwatch facility I missed. As I shifted through the large number of memories for anything Blackwatch related, a stray memory passed and before I knew it, a strange thought came to me:

_'__This country is much more technologically advanced than my village, but they don't seem to display the usage of Chakra or any ninja for that matter. But strange…'Infected' seem to be running amok on the streets, they seem more like zombies than anything…I should report this to Hokage-sama when I return to the village 3 months from now.'_

Startled by the strange usage of words, I temporarily halted my memory search for Blackwatch facilities and tried bringing up more memories from the same person. I vaguely remembered consuming what looked like a Japanese tourist about 2 weeks after I started searching for clues of my life, when I was being chased by Blackwatch personnal. I needed a disguise, so taking the most opportune target, which was the tourist; I consumed him and took on his appearance. Curious that he uses strange words like 'Chakra' and 'Hokage-sama'…And didn't ninja only exist a few centuries ago? Finally I came upon a set of memories from the same man, though slightly fragmented.

"_Aida Kensuke, you are hereby promoted to the rank of Jounin…"_

"…_B-rank mission, escort a businessman to Sunagakure…"_

"…_You're not getting away with this! __**Katon: Hosenka no Justu!**__"_

"…_go on a reconaissence mission for 1 year outside the Hidden Veil, a place named America…"_

After shifting through more of this Aida Kensuke's memories, I reflect upon what I just learned. Apparently there is a great continent hidden behind some 'Hidden Veil' in the middle of the Southern Pacific Ocean. This 'Veil' prevents all who do not know the existence of this continent from seeing it, even if you flew over it. To solve the problem of any boats getting close, they had some sort of 'genjustu' (seems like a fancy name for illusion) that made the waters around the continent seem stormy, making people avoid the area. Rather ingenious really, but I'm deviating.

The people who live on it seem to be less technologically advanced than the modern world. When I looked through his eyes in one of his memories, the building architecture reminded me of the Okayama prefecture. They made this up by having the ability to manipulate some kind of life energy that is in all living creatures (by their definition) called Chakra, which answers the question of what it was. They can do many things through this manipulation, for example illusions named 'genjutsu', offensive and defensive techniques of many kinds called 'ninjutsu', improving close combat fighting skills generally called 'taijutsu' and other uses. People who do and train in all of this were referenced as 'ninja'.

This intrigued me greatly, as this is definitely not normal by modern human definitions. Then again, these people seem to consider this normal, seeing as they lived and grew up around this type of concept, and I'm also not normal by modern human definition either. Something stirred within me too, a sort of battle hunger, which was mostly ignored when fighting either Infected or military, but it was definitely there when fighting a challenge, and I actually enjoyed it, for example that Leader Hunter…

I'm suddenly reminded of Alex's-my sister, Dana. I couldn't simply leave her here, even if she had recovered from her unconsciousness when she was kidnapped by that leader Hunter. Maybe I should bring her along to…wherever I would go. But if I ever considered going to these…"Shinobi Nations", I could be risking her life.

Then there was still the fact I wasn't the original Alex Mercer; that Dana wouldn't accept who I am now. That line of thought was immediately eliminated. The past Alex Mercer was only a scientist who didn't have any concern for others (why else would he willingly release the virus before dying). No, I am better than that. I helped bring the infection to an end. I am not a despicable scientist with no regard for others. I am a new man, and I will take better care for her than Alex did.

My mind is set. I will go to these Shinobi Nations and perhaps live there with Dana, in possible peace. The first memory I saw of this Aida Kensuke mentioned returning to his home village 3 months after that day. Since that was one and a half months ago, I have another one and a half months before the transport that is supposed to bring Kensuke back to the continent arrives. Until then, I will train myself to evolve further, maybe look through more of Kensuke's memories so as to get an idea of life in the Shinobi Nations. I was slightly concerned about developing my evolutionary potential before another stray memory revealed there were some monster-sized animals there. This further cemented my decision to go to the Shinobi Nations. I'll have to find a way to get a trip on the transport, but I can settle that later.

With that done, I open my eyes to the morning sun, and jumped off the roof of the building only to glide through the air temporarily to another rooftop. My destination: Dana's current residence across the city. I will have to talk to her to see what her point of view was on this whole 'Shinobi' thing. I vaguely recall the village's name as I transverse across wrecked streets: Konohagakure.

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Good? Bad? Please review, so I may improve, as this is my first try at making ANY fanfiction. And before you ask, Alex will be joining Konoha, so no requests for other villages. Also, I am not sure if I should add pairings (read: first try), so I need time to consider, so until then, please no requests for pairings, I have enough work as it is without having to do all the romance stuff.


	2. Chance for a New Life

Alright then, here's the new update. Thank you all who have set this on story alert/favorite and to those who have taken the time to read this story. I kinda didn't expect 100 hits before the next chapter. And thank you for reviewing, ita-chan. Also, I know there are other people out there who are reading this, so I would very much like it if you could review when you can so that if there is anything I can improve upon, I will know and can work on it so as to improve this story's quality.

"My name is Alex Mercer." Character speech

'My name is Alex Mercer.' Character thought

_My name is Alex Mercer._ Event/AN in story (last will be used rarely if possible)

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto (Kishimoto's) or Prototype (Radical Entertainment's) so please, no lawyers.

Oh yeah, final note. For simplicity's sake, Alex will be wearing what he wore in the game, unless I mention any wardrobe change. Which means Alex will be wearing his black jacket, brown hoodie, white shirt and jeans (I think they're jeans, I suck at telling the difference).

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Chapter 1 – Chance for a new life

_One and a half months since the prologue…_

Alex Mercer stood at the docks (_I can't remember the name right now, sorry_) of a mostly recovered New York City near evening. After the end of the Blacklight incident, initially the city was avoided by others, but slowly tourists trickled back in, until the city nearly returned to its former bustling self. Of course, it was impossible to forget the decimation that happened more than a month ago. Fortunately, the citizens have mostly returned to a peaceful life, with a few detours away from reminders of the incident.

As far as Alex knew, the infection was all but gone now. He personally made sure of that, along with any leftover Blackwatch he missed. He left the military well on their own; they were only following orders during the incident when they tried to kill him, and were currently more concerned with helping in the repairs to wrecked parts of the city. He even heard that they didn't like the Blackwatch at all, and that they were, and he quoted, "damn glad those bastards were given the ass kicking they deserved."

Concerning the topic of him, or more specifically to the military 'Zeus', there was mixed response. Some despised him, probably friends or fellow comrades of those he had consumed, while others acknowledged that, like them, Alex was also human, and survival usually came first. They were also rather glad he helped eliminate the rest of the infection after more than a month ago, and for stopping the nuclear bomb. They may not like him, but they were sure as hell grateful that he prevented the city from becoming a desolated wasteland.

Beside him was his sister, Dana Mercer in a plain white shirt and brown vest with long jeans. After rescuing her from Greene, albeit unconscious, he had placed her under the care of Dr Ragland, possibly the only other person he trusted during the whole incident. To his relief, she recovered about two days before he stopped the nuclear bomb. He visited her many times before then, always trying to find time between hunting down targets, to look after the last of his family, and continued to do so after. Although, there was some cause for alarm about a week after the nuclear bomb…

_Flashback – one week after the nuclear bomb thing_

They were taking a stroll around the block, when a creaking noise above grabbed their attention. A signboard with damaged supports was finally succumbing to the strain and was about to fall right at them. Alex had already pushed Dana to the side and tried to avoid, but was partially unsuccessful before a dust cloud arose from the impact of the signboard. When it cleared, Alex's left arm was cut off rather cleanly at the elbow. The signboard must have landed vertically right on the joint and cut through.

He grimaced. He knew he could regenerate from that, but it had still hurt like hell, and it would take a while. He sighed to himself, before deciding to pick up his forearm with his working right arm. After all, it wouldn't be good to just leave a part of him lying around. It may accidentally spread the infection, and the whole Blacklight incident will start all over again. Of course, there is the possibility it wouldn't, but Alex wasn't taking any chances.

"A little help here, Alex?" Dana called over to him. He quickly headed over to where Dana was and tried to offer his hand before remembering that his right was holding his left forearm. Nonetheless, she managed to get up on her own before looking at him and commented: "Too bad you couldn't lend a hand, Alex."

"Ha ha, very funny Dana…C'mon let's go back to the apartment, I don't want anyone seeing me like this. Probably will scare the crap out of them." He said before turning and walking off. After a while, he noticed Dana not following and turned around. She was looking weirdly at his dismembered left forearm, before seeming to reach out for it. Concerned, he asked: "Dana? What are you doing?"

"I don't know…but I have this strange feeling…gimme your forearm." She said before snatching it from his grasp.

"Hey!" He exclaimed, but she ignored him, instead motioning for him to raise his left stump of an arm. Puzzled, he did so, and she slowly brought his forearm closer, while bringing up her opened unoccupied palm close to where the fore and upper arm should connect. Suddenly, black tendrils from both sections reached out to each other before connecting and pulling each other together. A few seconds later, Alex's left forearm was, with nothing to indicate it had previously been cut off.

Both siblings raised both eyebrows at what just happened, seeing as they had dealt with weirder and more dangerous stuff during the last two months, and decided to go speak to Dr Ragland, he usually had good ideas, or made good guesses, as to how things happen.

_Flashback finish – Present_

After the good doctor made several scans and tests, he stumbled upon a disturbing revelation: Dana was infected with an unusual mutation of the Blacklight virus. From his analysis, it doesn't turn the host into a hideous creature, but instead allowed the host to 'control' other Blacklight viral hosts to do anything the host wanted. She couldn't control infected humans' every action, but could force the infection to do what she wanted, such as mutating a limb to bursting someone's heart. However, this strain couldn't be passed to others, which brought them some relief. Some further experimentation showed that infected animals could be fully controlled, probably due to having less intelligence than humans.

For some reason though, she could do little to Alex except helping accelerate his regeneration or re-attaching body parts together, which the doctor found out after using Alex as a reluctant guinea pig (he conceded to do it after Dana pleaded him for some time. Younger sisters tend to have special influence over their older brothers). They came up with some theories, but eventually decided that since Alex was the virus itself, the 'pure' strain couldn't be affected much by Dana's mutated strain.

On that note, he got slightly annoyed whenever Dana asked him if he could infect a dog or something so she could have a pet that could do anything she wanted. Due to a lack of any 'real' Blacklight experiments, they had to get a unenthusiastic Alex to infect a terminal cancer patient to test just what Dana could do with her strain of the virus. Of course, they got rid of the patient later, since he was about to die anyway from cancer. It appeared that if Alex attempted to infect anything with his 'pure' strain, the virus undergoes a very minor mutation to adjust to each living being's unique DNA code, which was enough for Dana to do what she wanted. He still hasn't relented; he didn't feel like getting slobbered by a mutant dog just because Dana was bored. He knew his sister too well.

Both were now standing at the docks, waiting for the transport that was supposed to pick up Kensuke Aida after the end of his one year mission. It's a possibility they did find out he died, but the Mercers were willing to find out if the transport would come, as it was a chance for a new life. Dr Ragland decided to stay, as he felt that his medical experience was more suited to the modern world than the Shinobi Nations. They had bid him farewell at his office before they came here.

Soon, both saw a fishing boat about to dock. That was supposed to be the transport to bring Aida back to the Shinobi Nations. The boat wasn't much, except a bit bigger than standard fishing boats, with the kanji for "_Ocean's Light_" painted with red on the side

They saw a gangplank placed before a gloomy looking man walked down and stood next to the boat. From Kensuke's memories, this was supposed to be the captain of the transport, someone by the name of Gin Kura. Alex started walking up to him with Dana following close behind, before he spoke in fluent Japanese: "Excuse me, would you happen to be Gin Kura?" He knew shifting through Kensuke's memories was a good idea to get a grip on the language. Dana had taken a course in Japanese when she was younger, so she wouldn't have any trouble.

"And how do you know about me?" The captain asked, with a semi-bored look on his face.

"I am Alex Mercer, and Kensuke Aida, the man you were supposed to pick up, is…was a good friend of mine before he died about 3 months ago…" Having a body that could shapeshift at will was pretty useful when speaking lies, as he could control himself to seem like he spoke the truth.

"I see…if I may ask, do you know?" Gin replied, with a slight look of interest on his face. He was discreetly asking if they knew about the Shinobi Nations.

"He trusted me and my sister here, Dana, and told me all about your nations. You see, a few months ago, something happened that caused a disaster in this city. It has mostly recovered now, but Kensuke thought it was a good idea to bring us along with him when he was due to return, as we were quite good friends with each other. Unfortunately…he died some time after the incident because of some felons, but he told us the date that you would be coming to bring him back. He wished us a good life in his homeland." He spoke smoothly, with visible signs of sadness when talking about Aida. Yup, having a body that can shapeshift was pretty useful in faking body expressions.

Gin looked thought for a while before speaking: "Well…I suppose I could bring you along, and I wouldn't have to explain why Aida didn't return to the Hokage, saves time…Alright, then, get on. And welcome to the world of the shinobi." Gin joked before turning and walked up the plank, while beckoning them to follow.

Gesturing for Dana to go ahead, Alex tilted his head back to New York City for possibly the final time, before following Gin to below deck, reaching two opened doors beside each other.

"Alright, these will be your rooms for the trip; if you want you can rest up for now, I'll be starting the ship up again soon. If the waters are good and the weather doesn't pick up, we'll be in the nations in 2 days from now, about…mid-morning to noon I guess." Gin stated before heading back up deck. Seeing no real difference between the two rooms after looking in, Dana went into the right after wishing a nice rest to Alex, who went into the left.

The room had rather good space, and was sparsely furnished. It had a wooden desk near the opposite wall, below a window looking out the starboard side. An opened door on the left wall revealed a bathroom, which settled hygiene for the trip. Next to the right wall was a simple bed that looked comfortable. He decided to lie down and closed his eyes, thinking to himself: 'Prepare yourself shinobi world…the Prototype is coming…'

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There. Good? Bad? Please review so that I may get a good opinion as to whether this is liked by you guys or not. Sorry I kinda infected Dana with the virus, albeit a strain that won't harm her, but I had no better idea to allow her to protect herself on her own without diverging from the Prototype idea. Next chapter will introduce Alex and Dana proper to the Naruto-verse, and maybe a fight scene (MAYBE).

Also, I have an announcement to make that will affect the whole story. There will be a poll set up in my profile that concerns what powers I should develop specifically for Alex (he will learn some ninja stuff for sure, this is mainly in the style of Prototype evolution, but I might add some special ninja stuff too for the poll). There will be three/four choices per poll and I will keep each poll up until after I post the next chapter after I announce a new poll, which will probably take a while. After each decision, I will set up the poll again 2 or 3 chapters after. Choices not selected in a poll may be recycled for another poll, but no guarantee. Visit my profile please to vote, I would very much like it.

Thank you again to all who have taken the time to read this story, I will try my best to make this a work of art. I will say it again, if you feel there is something that should be improved upon, please review so I may do what I can.


	3. Arrival and the Demon of the Bloody Mist

Second chapter up, woo hoo. Hope you guys like it. And I KNOW there are quite a few people who are reading this. I beg you; PLEASE review so that I can have constructive criticism/suggestions for improvement/words of encouragement to continue (not in that order).

Seeing as some people are confused, I will make this statement about the story: Alex will be the main protagonist of the story, so no giving Naruto the Blacklight virus, people. This is set 3 years before the start of the anime/manga, which means 9-10 years after the Kyuubi attack.

Also, I have decided to wait until before I post the next chapter before closing the poll. Please, I would like to know which kick-ass power/ability I should give Alex next.

"My name is Alex Mercer." Character speech

'My name is Alex Mercer.' Character thought

_My name is Alex Mercer._ Event/AN in story (last will be used rarely if possible)

"_My name is Alex Mercer."_ Web of Intrigue speech

'_My name is Alex Mercer.'_ Web of Intrigue thought

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto (Kishimoto's) or Prototype (Radical Entertainment's) so please, no lawyers.

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Chapter 2 –Arrival and the Demon of the Bloody Mist

Gin had made a good guess as to when they would arrive. After a relatively uneventful trip for a day and a half, they eventually arrived docked at a small harbor on the outskirts of the Land of Fire. After receiving a map and a message to explain who they were, the Mercer siblings wished Gin a safe journey wherever he went, before following the directions towards the Hidden Village in the Leaf. Judging by the map, they surmised that they would get there some time before evening, as long as there were no distractions along the way.

The two walked in relative silence, considering the fact they didn't have anything to talk about in the first place. Dana was using her latent powers she received from the unique strain in her to mutate her new pet dog, Fluffy. Alex had finally relented after they arrived at the docks and infected a stray on the streets. At first the dog only reached up to his knee, with skinny legs and skin pressing on the ribs. Now, after her mutating, it reached halfway up her thigh, with razor sharp claws and teeth, while a slight genetic modification caused two sharp talons grew from its back that could easily pierce flesh (_think of StarCraft zerglings, but still similar to a normal dog…for now_). She couldn't think of anything else for now, since she was still getting used to her unique virus.

Alex was in the Web of Intrigue, watching more memories of Kensuke to study the Shinobi life more. He had gone over his knowledge of the five Great Shinobi Nations and the different ranks while on the boat, since there was nothing else to do. However, yesterday he saw a lone shark close to the boat. Remembering biological facts about sharks and, most importantly, their unique ability to smell blood from a far, Alex 'fished' it out with his Whipfist and absorbed it. Now his sense of smell can pick up blood within an approximate radius of 5 miles, give or take.

"_The most important lesson of being a shinobi is looking underneath the underneath…"_

"…_those who abandon their teammates are worse than trash…"_

'Well, at least they know better than to abandon their allies…Too bad those bastard Blackwatch don't have that set of morals…' Alex thought bitterly to himself, remembering one incident where a bunch of Military and Blackwatch were defending themselves from Infected attacking from all sides. When Blackwatch helicopters came, they only picked up the Blackwatch soldiers while leaving the Military to their death. Their respect for the Blackwatch dropped considerably, but before they were overrun, Alex had jumped down from a nearby building and started massacring the Infected. Leaving words unspoken, the Military provided support fire until the Infected were either dead or retreated. They knew Alex could kill them easily but he didn't, so they returned the favor by not reporting to their commanding officers the sighting of 'Zeus'.

Suddenly, his newly gained 'blood scent' as he called it picked up something. Motioning for Dana to follow, he dashed off in the general direction while keeping his speed in check to let Dana track him easily. Dodging trees in his path while making sure Dana was able to catch up, he finally got to a clearing which his blood scent told him was the place.

The source of the blood was in plain sight on the right, a man wearing cargo pants with no shirt, while wrappings hid the lower part of his face, like a mask, with no eyebrows. He was holding a large cleaver-like sword in his left, though he seemed to have some trouble, seeing as he was clearly tired, and his body was riddled with cuts. Behind him was an unconscious girl, though Alex couldn't see clearly, but knew she was in a similar state as the man in front of her. One noticeable thing he saw was the Hitai-ite on the injured man's head with the symbol for the Hidden Village of the Mist, and the slash across it. This indicated that he was a rogue ninja, or nuke-nin.

Currently, the injured nuke-nin was glaring at five ninja in front of him. They wore similar clothing, with four wearing what Alex recognized as Chunin vests, while the fifth had a Jounin vest. They wore similar Hitai-ite with the same symbol without the slash across it. Obviously they were the ones who attacked the nukenin, the katanas they were holding dripping blood from the blade, the life fluid smelling the same as the blood dripping from the nukenin's wounds.

"Now we got you, Zabuza Momochi, A-Rank nuke-nin, the Demon of the Bloody Mist. We can do this the easy way or the hard way." The Jounin, most likely the leader of the bunch, spoke.

"You can kiss my ass, you bastard. I'm not going down without a fight…" The newly named Zabuza replied with a furious tone.

"Pretty lucky for us to find you injured and worn out after a fight, or else this would be more difficult. After we take care of you, we can have some…fun with the kid there." The Jounin spoke with a hint of lust.

Alex was furious at them. Whether or not this Zabuza was a rogue ninja, he despised people who took advantage of others while they were injured, and even more so those who would rape females, much less a child. He made up his mind and, after Dana managed to catch up, told her to go help Zabuza before dashing in between the two groups.

Both sides were surprised when a hooded man suddenly dashed between them and faced the four Chunin and single Jounin. The lead Jounin quickly exclaimed, "What are you doing, get out of the way. We need to kill the nukenin to restore honor to the village." Alex didn't have to turn around to know that Zabuza was probably furious that the Jounin was lying in such a way. Nonetheless he played along.

"Maybe I will…" The Jounin smirked in triumph, which quickly fell after Alex continued, "…if not for the fact I know what you're really about to do. You're attacking an injured man, and also planning on raping the girl he's protecting. Honorless scum like you and your friends disgust me."

"Dude, I don't know who you are, but you better get out of the way! Those guys are only after me, don't involve yourself!" Zabuza tried to warn him before looking in bewilderment at Dana who had appeared next to him and was trying to bandage his arm. "Lady, what the hell are you doing?!" Alex simply turned to him before saying:

"I never leave an injured man to his fate, unless he deserves it." One of the Chunin, taking this distraction for his 'advantage', quickly dashed forward, intending to stab Alex through the heart. He was unsuccessful, as Alex quickly turned at the last minute, shifted the biomass in his arms into his Claws in a fluid movement, before beheading the foolish Chunin in a single fast swipe.

Zabuza, the Jounin and remaining Chunin were shocked at the new appearance of the stranger's arms. Instead of its previous human-like form, the flesh was a sickening black, with many spikes growing all over the slightly bulkier arm, and ended with three long razor sharp blade-like fingers and a similar but shorter thumb. The Jounin quickly shook himself out of his stupor, before exclaiming, "So what if you have a bloodline, we still outnumber you!" He followed that statement with a charge, the Chunin also waking from their stupid before following.

Alex smirked to himself, before dashing quickly to the side, avoiding the lead Jounin's attempt to slice his head off, and stabbed his left arm into the chest of one Chunin, before spinning about and beheading a second Chunin with his right. Avoiding the wild swings of the last Chunin, he backhanded him to the air, before smoothly slicing him straight through the waist, leaving the body in two pieces. Suddenly, he stiffened, as the Jounin's katana stabbed him from his back, piercing right through. The Jounin, confident of his 'victory', quickly turned to shock when Alex simply pushed him off, the katana sliding out of his chest. Before the Jounin and Zabuza's eyes, the wound quickly fixed itself up with dark red tendrils, leaving not a mark of injury, including in his clothes.

Quickly, the Jounin moved to run, when the Chunin Alex had stabbed in the chest, still alive but bleeding badly, exclaimed, "Raiza, don't leave us…" "Every man for himself, and I PLAN on living!" The Jounin bit back, before making a run for it. Alex simply stood where he was, shifted the biomass in his right into his Whipfist, before launching it right into the Jounin's back. The long extension of tentacles made contact, and stabbed through the flesh, before pulling the screaming Jounin to Alex, only to impale him through the front on his claws, piercing a lung. Alex angrily spoke,

"You dare abandon your teammates to their death? Instead of fighting to the death with honor, trying to avenge your teammates, you flee in fear, leaving them to die. You are worse than scum…you will suffer 'til your last breath."

The last word escaping from his lips, tendrils similar to when he healed himself traveled up his arm, piercing and consuming the flesh of the Jounin, tearing him apart piece by piece, starting from his legs upwards. All throughout this, the Jounin screamed at the agonizing pain and continued till his lungs were consumed. After that, all that remained of the Jounin were a few drops of blood that escaped while he was consumed.

Turning to the barely alive Chunin, Alex spoke, "I'll give you a quick death." He weakly nodded, before closing his eyes. At that, he was stabbed through the head, ending it quickly, like Alex promised. Turning to the shocked Zabuza, who was too busy with his jaw dropped to stop Dana from bandaging his wounds, Alex spoke, "I hope you are alright…"

At that, he snapped out his shock and yelled, "WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT?!" "Just my…unique power…" Alex calmly replied, before going through the dead Chunins' bodies for anything of use, while Dana pointedly told Zabuza to stay still, Fluffy growling menacingly next to him to back that up.

Five minutes later, Zabuza's wounds were all bandaged up, and Alex had finished taking stock of the Chunins' items. He found approximately 25k ryo, some scrolls and of course the deceased's katanas. After that, he consumed the Chunins' bodies so as to remove evidence.

"Well…thanks I guess for helping me…but why did you do that?" Zabuza asked, while Alex scoffed to himself before replying, "Not to sound rude, but I thought you needed more than just help…and besides, like I said, they were scum who didn't understand honor." Dana rolled her eyes before elbowing him in the side, stating, "Right…and you just weren't itching for a fight." "That was a minor factor that helped." "I'm sure that's true." That eventually led to an argument quite common amongst siblings.

Zabuza shook his head in disbelief, before a faint voice called out, "Zabuza-sama?" His eyes widened, he quickly hobbled over to where the girl was, exclaiming "Haku! You ok?!" The two siblings stopped their bickering as they turned to Zabuza cradling the girl's head in his arms, worried of her condition. Smiling, they decided to walk away, towards their original destination before a shout called their attention. "Wait! What're your names?"

Turning slightly, Alex gave Zabuza a smile. "Alex Mercer, and my sister, Dana." He replied before turning back the way they were heading. Dana followed with a wave of goodbye, Fluffy dutifully following at her heel. He watched them walk away, before noticing something near his feet. It was about 10k ryo and three of the katanas from the corpses. He figured that the rest of the stuff was with them. He smiled to himself, at least some people still knew about honor and had morals.

Confused, Haku asked in an innocent tone, "Zabuza-sama? Who were they? And did we get away?" Still looking in their direction, he replied, "Those were the ones who helped us, the guy, Alex helped take care of those guys chasing us." Silently, he helped Haku up before taking the stuff the Mercers left for them. "C'mon, let's get going before someone stumbles upon us. Then we'll be in trouble…again." Giggling to herself, Haku followed the man who had taken her in during her time of need, and who she unofficially called…her father.

Zabuza smiled to himself, hearing that happy giggle, before screeching to a temporary halt. He was furiously ranting at himself for forgetting what Alex Mercer's power was. And what was with that strange dog, it looked…freaky. Haku was of course surprised he suddenly stopped and asked what was wrong. He simply shook his head, said it was nothing before he continued walking, Haku following behind, still slightly surprised. Silently he vowed to himself that the next time they met, he was going to find out what was Alex's bloodline, even if he had to try to beat it out of him.

Later, when the sun was close to setting, the Mercer siblings finally reached the gate of the Hidden Village of the Leaf. Two Chunin were standing guard outside. Alex walked up to one of them and passed him the message he received from Gin. After briefly reading through, the guard's eyes widened before motioning for them to enter, while passing the message back to them, telling them to give it to the Hokage and directions on how to find the Hokage's tower.

Looking at the 'village' before him, Alex smirked inwardly and thought, 'Hello, Konohagakure…the Prototype is here…'

* * *

There we go, hope you guys like it. I know there are people out there who have set this story on alert or favourite. Thank you very much, but please, I would like reviews so that I know how I can improve this story, that or vote in my poll if you haven't yet. There is currently a tie, that and to me it seems a bit too few. I will be very grateful to you all if you can do so. And if you do not like Alex sprouting all that honor stuff, sorry, but I needed to make it sound realistic, and it does work anyway.

Edit: Sorry, forgot to mention that next chapter, the siblings will meet the Hokage, the full truth and extent of Alex's powers will be revealed to the old man(you'll find out how), then Sarutobi will make him fight the Jounin for his rank (after Alex expresses an interest of joining, since there was nothing better to do), so expect a fight scene, but if it sucks, tell me so I can try to edit it to make it better quality/detail.

Also, the creepy norwegian guy who reviewed. I can't reply to you in any way, so I'll have to settle with adding this while i was gonna edit the chapter anyway: Haku is a girl in my fic, as FOR CHRIST SAKE she looks too feminine to be a guy, and remember, 'look underneath the underneath'. Haku could be decieving Naruto at that time, since shinobi always do that. Furthermore, this is a FANFICTION. Stuff in the anime/manga isn't always followed. And my author powers grant me the last word that Haku is a girl in my fic. Case Closed. (and no I don't read the manga with the same name)


	4. Explanations and Trial by Fire

Alright, here's the third chapter. I thank you all for the reviews, but ultimate-zelda-fan, PLEASE stop thinking that Alex will involve himself with Naruto/Team 7 so easily. Stop getting random ideas that aren't even in the plot (or trying to influence me to use your ideas)

Also, I have decided to implement the top choice of the poll, which is Dual Offensive Powers (hurrah to all who voted). The poll will now be renewed with a new choice. Check my profile for the new choice, and to vote. Alex's new power will appear in this chapter. Convenient, since there is supposed to be a fight scene right now hehehe.

"My name is Alex Mercer." Character speech

'My name is Alex Mercer.' Character thought

_My name is Alex Mercer._ Event/AN in story (last will be used rarely if possible)

"_My name is Alex Mercer."_ Web of Intrigue speech

'_My name is Alex Mercer.'_ Web of Intrigue thought

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto (Kishimoto's) or Prototype (Radical Entertainment's) so please, no lawyers.

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Chapter 3 – Explanations and Trial by Fire

_Ten minutes later, Hokage's Office_

Hiruzen Sarutobi, the Sandaime Hokage, studied the two siblings in front of him. They, or more specifically Alex, intrigued him greatly. They had arrived about five minutes ago and explained who they were, before passing him the message Gin had given them. The message stated that Kensuke Aida was KIA, that the two siblings were friends of Kensuke who told them of the Shinobi Nations, and that they were from the country that Kensuke was sent to scout, supporting the statement of who they were. Gin also stated his suspicions that Alex had a hidden power, especially when he watched him yesterday with the shark.

He measured out the pros and cons of letting them stay in Konoha. On the one hand, they can help describe the outside world to them, which would be useful to avoid violent countries. On the other, what Gin mentioned disturbed him, and made him consider whether they would be a threat to Konoha.

Silently, Alex watched the Hokage in deep thought. While he seemed to be a weak old man, looks can be deceiving in the ninja world. He was pretty sure that Sarutobi had years of experience under his belt, and shouldn't be underestimated. And the old stereotype that old men were wise and knowledgeable could mean the same here. Hopefully he didn't find out about his…unique powers.

Finally Sarutobi seemed to come to a decision, before saying, "I will consent to letting you stay here, if you will oblige to two conditions." Alex and Dana looked at each other, knowing it would have been too easy if he just let them stay, before turning back to Sarutobi and indicating for him to continue.

"The first condition is that you tell us as much as you know about the world outside the Shinobi Nations. Since you are from out there, you are technically a good source of information." Alex contemplated for a few seconds before nodding. Sarutobi continued with a discreet motion that did not go unnoticed by Alex. "The second condition…" Alarm bells rang in Alex's head and before he knew it, four ninja wearing animal masks-ANBU, from Kensuke's memories- surrounded the siblings and Fluffy (who was temporarily mutated to look like a normal, but muscled, dog to avoid questions). "…is to explain what ability you have, Mercer-san, and whether you are a threat to Konoha." Alex sighed to himself. He knew it was too easy, but how did they know? He didn't sense anyone nearby when he fought the Mist ninja…unless…

"Gin saw me, didn't he." It was more of a statement than a question, which Sarutobi confirmed with a nod. "*sigh* Very well, but first call your men off and send them out." Sarutobi raised an eyebrow before Alex replied, "Less people knowing, less likelihood for a leak." He understood immediately: Alex's secret must be something really big that he request only he, the Hokage, know about. With a gesture, the ANBU disappeared from view, Alex subtly using his Thermal Vision to scan the room, outwardly looking as if checking the corners of the room. Satisfied, he turned back to Sarutobi after returning to his normal vision. "If you really must know, I should first tell you what happened three and a half months ago."

Giving Alex his full attention, Sarutobi signaled him to explain.

"Three and a half months ago, someone released a deadly virus into New York city. It spread life wildfire, and soon the infection spread throughout the city, but more than half the population was still uninfected. The military declared martial law and placed the city under quarantine, while working towards dealing with the infection. Three and a half months ago…Alex Mercer died."

Before Sarutobi tried to interrupt, Alex raised a hand to stop him. "After he died, the virus entered his body, replicating it cell by cell, until his body was fully replaced with it. Soon enough, the virus gained sentience, so to speak, and revived him, as me. You can say I am still Alex Mercer, just not the original. The virus undergoes a constant state of evolution, with different…catalytic situations causing mutations for new powers."

Sarutobi was stunned. In front of him was basically adaptive evolution itself. He realized that Alex didn't continue to explain his evolutionary powers, and asked, "Perhaps you can explain what your 'powers' are?" Alex looked at him, before giving him a smirk that said 'I got a better idea'. "How about we do a live presentation? Me versus any ninja of your choice. Don't you agree it will be better than just explaining?" Sarutobi had to agree with the logic behind that. Some things were more easily understood when demonstrated instead of just explained. "Very well, tomorrow morning, you will face four ninja of my choice, each a specialist in a different field of being a shinobi. I doubt you would want to fight now, when it is nearly nighttime, and I am sure you are tired after traveling here."

Thinking for a while, Alex spoke, "Logical, but I nearly forgot about something for a second earlier…no, make that two. First, where are we to live, and second, how do we explain my unique situation?" Those raised good questions in Sarutobi's mind, especially the second. The council will definitely get wind of Alex's powers and would no doubt demand an explanation. Thoughtfully, he managed to get an answer for the first question. "For accommodation, I think we have a few empty apartments in the shinobi residential district, but I am unsure how to hide the true nature of your…" Suddenly, an idea came to him. "Mercer-san, have you heard of a bloodline?" Vaguely, he recalled the Mist Jounin he consumed mention the same thing, before quickly entering the Web of Intrigue for the Jounin's memories, and finding the relevant memory after a few seconds.

"_A bloodline is basically a mutation in a human's DNA, granting the person unique abilities usually limited to his/her own family, and can be passed down to his/her offspring."_

Opening his eyes, he recited word-for-word what was in the memory, before realization spread across his face. Glad that Alex also got the same idea, Sarutobi continued while writing on a piece of paper an address, "We can officially say that you are from the outside world, and one out of millions to possess a bloodline from your world. That way, people wouldn't question the circumstances of how you got your powers. Now then, I believe you two need some rest. Here is the address with directions, and here's the key. I will see you in the morning 9 am, training ground 23, Alex-san. You can come and watch if you wish, Dana-san. The directions to get there is with the address."

Wishing Sarutobi good night, the two siblings walked out and started following the directions to the apartment, which they found after a few minutes. Opening the door with the key provided, they entered to find a well-furnished living room. After exploring a bit, they found a kitchen, two bedrooms with attached bathrooms and a spacious backroom with nothing inside. With nothing else to do, and tired after the whole day's events, Dana decided to retire to her chosen bedroom first, wishing Alex good night. Silently, Alex entered the Web of Intrigue and shifted through the Mist Jounin and Chunins' knowledge to learn more about the Shinobi world, before a stray memory from one of the Chunin floated by.

"_Learning to wield two weapons at once allows one to keep up the pressure on the enemy while ensuring you can guard yourself quickly and also keeps the enemy unsure which way you would attack after the first strike..."_

Alex stared blankly at those words before returning to his main body and smashed his head against the wall repeatedly. Why didn't he think of that before?! Sighing to himself, he silently walked into the backroom to test out his new idea. He tested it out for 2 hours, keeping the noise to a minimum for Dana. Satisfied with the results, he went to sleep.

A few minutes later, two kunoichi returned to their shared apartment across the landing from the Mercers'. Noticing the newly locked door, one of them commented, "Seems like we got some new neighbors, so that means no more trying to get 'fun' time at night, Anko." "Awww, are you sure about that Nai-chan? Maybe they won't mind!" "Anko…"

_The next morning, 8.55 am, training ground 23_

Hiruzen Sarutobi stood on one side of the clearing, waiting patiently for Alex to arrive, though Dana was welcome to watch too. With him stood six of his best Jounin. They were Kakashi Hatake, Kurenai Yuhi, Might Gai, Hayate Gekko, Asuma Sarutobi and Anko Mitarashi. Kakashi, Kurenai, Gai and Hayate were the four to test Alex, Kakashi in Ninjutsu, Kurenai in Genjutsu, Gai in Taijutsu, and Hayate in Kenjutsu. Asuma had come along to see what the big fuss was, while Anko was here both to wait for Kurenai to finish so they can have some 'alone' time and to see who the new guy was. They were all informed last night some time after the Mercers left the Hokage Tower to come here at that time, and if Kakashi did not come on time, Kurenai had the right to burn his Icha Icha collection.

Needless to say, he came half an hour before the designated time.

Soon enough, when it was nearly 9 am, Alex walked into the grounds with Dana behind him, Fluffy following obediently at her heel.

Motioning for Dana to join the ninja bunch, Alex walked to the middle of the clearing. The elder Sarutobi nodded, before saying, "Alex Mercer, you will be fighting Kurenai Yuhi, Hayate Gekko, Might Gai and Kakashi Hatake in that order. Kurenai specializes in Genjutsu, Hayate in Kenjutsu, Gai in Taijutsu, and Kakashi in Ninjutsu. Kurenai, if you will." The red-eyed female walked up, spoke, "Hope you don't mind getting beaten…" before getting into a fighting stance, while Alex just stood there calmly, waiting for the signal.

"Hajime!"

Quickly, Kurenai flipped through several hand seals before whispering to herself, after which she slowly disappeared, as if the wind blew her away. Alex scanned the area around him, Thermal Vision activated, then immediately shifted his left arm into his MuscleMass power and punched to his right, impacting an invisible wall which was smashed back, revealing Kurenai in a few seconds. Calmly, while reverting his arm back quickly, he spoke, "While your Genjutsu hides you from plain sight, you still give off heat, which gave you away." She gaped at him, he just mentioned one of the fundamental weaknesses of Genjutsu…but wasn't he from the outside world? How did he know?

Slowly she got up before joining the others, while Hayate walked forward drawing his sword. At another "Hajime!" Alex had to quickly dodge a fast slice from Hayate, and continued to dodge until he finally shifted his right arm into his powerful Blade power and blocked the next slash before counter-attacking. Eyes widened at the Blade's sudden appearance, Hayate was quickly put on the defensive as a powerful combo from Alex's Blade pushed him back. Undaunted, the two rushed at each other and soon it was a dance of deadly blades, each gaining no ground.

However, Hayate was tiring out rapidly. 'Shit…his strikes have a lot of power in them; I can't keep this up for much longer.' Thinking quickly, he feinted to the left but quickly turned at the last second and tried to slash Alex's unprotected left arm. What he thought was unprotected was immediately changed to a large Shield that easily took the blow with little effort, before he was suddenly aware of Alex's Blade at his neck.

The rest of the shinobi were surprised that Hayate was defeated while Dana calmly watched on, even with his sickness, Hayate was one of their best Jounin. Asuma, cigarette on the ground forgotten, gave a low whistle before commenting, "Man, that guy must use a lot of strength when he was attacking just now. I saw Hayate tiring rather quickly just now." Startled at this, the shinobi turned back to the clearing as Might Gai immediately ran forward, thinking just how powerful was Alex, since Hayate didn't tire out THAT easily, even with his sickness. Subconsciously, Anko licked her lips; this guy was getting more mysterious by the second, and she liked that kind of guys. Except Kakashi, he was a pervert. 'Nuff said.

"Never assume a man is defenseless." Alex gave a tidbit of advice before moving back, looking at his next opponent before staring incredulously. Gai, as usual, was wearing a green spandex suit, but Alex didn't know that was his normal uniform.

'…Did I just get the loony of the bunch to fight next?' He heard a "Hajime!" before warning bells rang in his head, quickly raising his Shield to block a punch from Gai, who seemed to suddenly appear in front of him. 'SHIT, fast!' Alex blocked another blow while jumping backwards, giving him some space before speedily shifting both arms into his traditional Claws and rushed forward, unleashing a flurry of strikes in return. Soon enough, both sides were throwing powerful strikes against each other that continued for several minutes, each not gaining an upper hand. Once, a Claw strike slashed across Gai's chest, leaving three bloody cuts in his chest. He had returned in kind with a powerful punch that pushed Alex back, before the fight continued. The spectators were amazed, both at the speed it was going, and that Alex actually had enough speed to rival Gai's!

Alex blocked another fast blow when suddenly stars appeared in his face, as Gai had suddenly appeared in front of him and punched him right in the face. Smashed backwards, he quickly got back on his feet, wiping off some blood dripping from the side of his mouth from the last blow. Growling to himself, he decided to get serious.

"You're fast…and strong…time to stop playing around." That said, he started gathering the biomass in him; it had been a while since he used his Armored Form. The shinobi were surprised that he was 'playing around' until now, Gai quickly stood on guard, as the others watched on, wondering just what else Alex had. Anko was even more excited, just who was this guy?

Roaring, Alex started forming his deadly Armored Form. First, dense armor plates of biomass formed over his arms, before his clothes shifted into the same plating over his chest and back, spreading further down to his legs. Finally, to finish it, his hood transformed into the same before an armor plate slid over Alex's face, serving as a facemask. Before he knew it, Gai quickly appeared in front of him and tried to punch him. He soon realized his folly as, when his fist impacted one of the dense plating, pain exploded in his fist. It was like a normal man hitting a stone wall without protection!

Seemingly unfazed by Gai's attempt, Alex pushed away the offending arm and, shifting his arms with his MuscleMass, threw a devastating punch at the sitting duck that was Gai. He was punched all across the clearing before impacting with a dense tree. Even that did not stop the momentum, so it was quickly smashed apart while Gai continued to fly into more trees until he finally landed unconscious onto the ground, with about four destroyed trees before him.

The Jounin and Hokage all gaped openly at the sheer amount of strength that was just displayed: It was INSANE. And how Gai seemed to render no effect on him when he tried to punch Alex spoke volumes on how strong Alex's Armored Form was. Anko shivered in pure excitement, since Kakashi was next, and she wanted to see how badly the pervert would get beaten down by Alex. Soon, Gai was lifted off the field by Asuma and Kurenai, while Alex shifted back to his normal form. He inwardly panted, 'Shit, I hate using Armored Form…tires me out a bit every freaking time…better use my idea last night…'

Silently, Kakashi stepped forward while ranting in his head, 'That punch ALONE caused enough damage to Gai to knock him out! I better watch out if he uses those large fists again. And while Hokage-sama did mention that he had some form of shapeshifting powers, the weapons he uses are really powerful…And I REALLY don't want to face that armor.'

At the signal, both sides…didn't move at all. Kakashi was studying Alex while likewise, Alex was studying Kakashi. Slowly, Kakashi reached into his pouch…

Before taking out an Icha Icha Paradise novel and started reading it.

All the other shinobi faceplanted into the ground with an anime-style sweatdrop before Kurenai angrily got up and shouted, "GOD DAMNIT KAKASHI! I THOUGHT I TOLD YOU NOT TO READ THAT PORN OF YOURS!!!" He simply shrugged before reading on, when suddenly it was torn to shreds by Alex's left Claw, before he narrowly avoided his right Blade. Silently, Alex stood up before a massive wave of killing intent flooded the grounds. Looking up, he was slightly surprised that Kakashi was glaring at him angrily, his hands grasping the remains of his book and flipping through hand seals, before he shouted, "YOU DESTROYED MY PRECIOUS!!! KATON: GOKAKYU NO JUTSU!!!! (Fire Release: Great Fireball Technique)

A massive fireball, as the name implied, flew straight towards Alex, who quickly brought up his right Blade to minimize the damage. When it contacted, a large explosion ensured while kicking up a large dust cloud. He was slightly disoriented before noticing a loud noise, as if there were a lot of birds chirping together.

Kakashi was FURIOUS at Alex. Outsider or not, he will NOT get away with destroying his precious! Not thinking rationally, he resorted to one thing to punish the perpetrator, pushed up his Hitai-ate and flipped through a few hand seals. The other shinobi also took notice of the loud chirping sound, before the Hokage shouted, "NO KAKASHI!" But before he could intervene, Kakashi screamed out, "CHIDORI!!" before running straight at Alex. Stunned by the large amount of visible electricity on Kakashi's hand, and still disoriented from earlier, he was in no position to block the electrical stab that pierced right through his chest.

Silence. The others watched in disbelief as Kakashi had just used his own creation, the Chidori, on Alex, killing him. But Dana stayed quiet. She knew that Alex wouldn't die so easily, but decided to let them find out for themselves. Kakashi panted quietly to himself, knowing that the Hokage will most definitely punish him greatly for this, not noticing Alex's twitching hand that slowly raised itself to his chest. Suddenly, he was aware of a hand grabbing his right arm in Alex's chest, before looking up and gasped. Alex was still alive, and roughly pulled Kakashi's arm out of his chest, which was quickly covered in red tendrils that soon disappeared, leaving no trace of a wound. He coldly spoke, "That…HURT." Before Kakashi could do anything, Alex furiously activated his HammerFist power and gave Kakashi a powerful uppercut that smashed him into the sky.

The Jounins' jaws were all dropped onto the ground in disbelief. Hiruzen couldn't believe his eyes. Alex had taken a powerful Chidori through the chest, and simply regenerated from it, and returned an uppercut as if nothing happened. He seemed…UNKILLABLE. Anko almost passed out from the pure bliss of seeing Kakashi get what he deserved for reading his porn and being a pervert. Slowly, Alex changed his arms back to normal and walked over to Hiruzen, before speaking up, "So…you like the demonstration?"

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Alright, there we go. Hope you guys like the fight scene. Sorry I made Kurenai's too short, but it's kinda true. Even if you cloud their normal senses, you still give off body heat. Probably the only Genjutsu that could get Alex is probably Tsukiyomi, since it actually forces the brain to BELIEVE he is stabbed many times. Also, I know it sounds a bit overpowered, but the HammerFist packs hundreds of pounds into Alex's fists. And this is without the Armored Form. Finally, I would like to mention that I am CONSIDERING to put in Alex/Anko, but I'm not sure yet, so don't take the signs as a confirmation, its only setting up some plot if I really do, and if I don't, well, we all know how Anko is like anyway. Oh and my first try of an omake, if you like it I appreciate it.

OMAKE

After touching the sky, Kakashi landed into water, which helped cushion him. It didn't stop him from hurting all over from that devastating punch though. As he surfaced, he gasped for breath before feeling a sense of doom, as massive waves of killing intent washed over him. Looking up, he realized he had landed in the hot springs, or more specifically, the female side. In front of him were several women clad only in a towel, and most of them were trained shinobi, who liked to keep weapons on their body somehow at all times. Seconds later, Konoha was filled with the loud pained cries of a male getting mauled and stabbed by many angry females.


	5. Guide to Dealing with Council Idiocy

Chapter 4 is here. Thank you all for the reviews! Also, after this chapter I may take longer to update, school homework is piling up, so expect the time in between chapters to be longer. I'll try to make up for it with longer chapters, but no guarantees.

Oh yes, I have forgotten what the council chamber looks like, so I'm putting it such that it is a large semi-circular room, the shinobi and civilian sides separated to two halves of the room facing the Hokage's seat in front. The two elders (forgot their names) and Danzo will be sitting the shinobi side.

"My name is Alex Mercer." Character speech

'My name is Alex Mercer.' Character thought

_My name is Alex Mercer._ Event

"_My name is Alex Mercer."_ Web of Intrigue speech

'_My name is Alex Mercer.'_ Web of Intrigue thought

(_My name is Alex Mercer._) AN in story (will be used rarely if possible)

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto (Kishimoto's) or Prototype (Radical Entertainment's) so please, no lawyers.

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Chapter 4 – Guide to Dealing with Council Idiocy

Half an hour after Alex finished his demonstration, the elder Sarutobi and the Mercers were back in his office. The other Jounin had either taken Gai for treatment or went to search for Kakashi's landing point. Facing Alex, Sarutobi started talking,

"I must say I am…impressed with the demonstration. Perhaps you could tell me just how many powers you have, and explain them. While I have seen them just now, I don't know your full extent. And maybe you could care to explain how you took the Chidori to your chest and still survive." Alex smirked, he knew that the Hokage was shocked to see his regenerative powers, and that he was more than impressed with him than he let on.

"Well, to explain my regenerative powers, think of the virus in my body as a cancer, but it is controlled, and when I'm injured, the virus immediately replicates itself at an alarming rate to fix me up. Now, as for my other powers…"

For the next fifteen minutes, Alex explained the use of each of his powers, shifting his arm each time to emphasize specific uses or traits. Finally, Sarutobi realized something strange. "Alex-san, you keep talking about this biomass, and you explained it. But, how do you get the biomass to use?" "Great…very well. First a demonstration of another of my powers." Sighing to himself, he started shifting his biomass again, but instead shifted it into the likeness of the last Mist Chunin he had consumed.

Sarutobi was shocked and immediately on guard when Alex's body started shifting with the signature red tendrils, but it covered his whole body instead of his arms, and when it finished, a Mist Chunin stood in his place. Quickly, the 'Chunin' raised his palm to stop the Hokage from speaking, before he shifted back into Alex. He continued, "That was my special Disguise Form. With it, I shift my biomass into the last person I…for a lack of a better word…consumed." With that, he explained further how he consumes people, and how he gains the abilities and memories of the consumed, and also provided the biomass for his powers.

Silence, before Sarutobi's pipe dropped from his opened mouth. In his head, he was furiously thinking on the implications of this. With this consume and disguise combination of powers, Alex was technically the ultimate assassin. For example, a mission to infiltrate and kill someone in a fortress. He can easily consume an outside guard, and with all the memories of the guard, he easily knew what were the patrol routes and guard shifts, and could easily get to his target without leaving a trail, since there were no bodies to find, and he was technically the body until he consumed another. This way he can also avoid making mistakes, since he has the memories of the guard, so he knew exactly how to act without drawing suspicion. Sarutobi now understood how Alex was a gift from Kami himself, the ultimate assassin, and a deadly fighter too.

Thinking to himself, he finally spoke up, "Alex, you know of the lifestyle of a shinobi, and the missions they undertake?" Confused with the question, he nodded while Dana looked at the old man in puzzlement. He continued, "Then you are aware that with your powers, you could be one of the best to undertake those missions?" Alex thought to himself, before realizing what the Hokage was asking. "You're asking if I'm interested to be a shinobi." Another statement than a question. The old Hokage nodded, confirming his suspicions. "Yes, I do believe you would be perfect for a shinobi, which is why, if you accept, I would give you the rank of-" Before he could continue, an ANBU suddenly appeared in a cloud of smoke beside him and spoke, "Hokage-sama, my apologies for interrupting you, but the Council called for a meeting and asked for your presence immediately to explain some rumors they have heard."

Inwardly, both Alex and Sarutobi groaned. 'I knew those fools would get wind of Alex's powers.' 'I can tell I'm about to get involved in politics, and I hate politics…' Dana just looked confusedly between the two, before the Hokage spoke up, "Well, it seems those idiots have caught wind of your presence and are demanding to know about you. If you like, you may come along. Dana-san, I suggest you go back to the apartment, as I think they will no doubt ask awkward questions." The Mercer siblings nodded, before Dana faced Alex and said, "Good luck brother, hope you don't get a headache later." His mouth twitched before he said, "Thanks sis…go back to the apartment or go exploring if you want. Make sure you don't get in trouble." "Since when did I get in trouble?" "Do I have to remind you about the Leader Hunter?" "That was your fault!" "So?" They bantered playfully for a while more before Alex followed the Hokage to the Council chamber, while Dana decided to return to the apartment first to rest up a bit before going out to find some clothes to buy.

_Five minutes later, Council chamber_

The chamber was flooded with the sounds of argument. The civilian council, consisting of wealthy merchants or influential civilians, had taken opportunity of the called meeting was busy arguing amongst themselves about inane things, such as income and trade, while the shinobi council was patiently waiting for the Hokage's arrival, while curious about what the whole fuss was about. All arguments stopped when the Hokage entered, only for murmurings to arise when Alex followed through and stood next to the Hokage's desk. After taking his seat, Sarutobi cleared his throat before speaking up, "Now then, what is so important to call for a council meeting?"

Immediately, Danzo stood up before saying, "Hokage-sama, I have called this meeting because I have heard rumors that someone from the outside world has entered Konoha and also managed to beat four of our best Jounin, Kakashi Hatake, Kurenai Yuhi, Hayate Gekko and Might Gai." As suddenly as the arguments stopped, they started again in larger volume, with exclaims of disbelief that an outsider beat four of their best Jounin. Most of the shinobi council members' curiosity was piqued and were listening intently for an explanation. The Hokage simply raised his hand for silence, and slowly the council settled down, all wanting any confirmation for the rumors, before he looked at Alex.

Nodding to the Hokage, he stepped forward so that the whole council could see him. He cleared his throat before speaking, "My name is Alex Mercer…and those rumors are true, as I am that man." Before the council could interrupt with shouts and accusations, the Hokage once again raised his hand for silence, and to let Alex continue. He nodded to the old man in gratitude before continuing, "Yes, I am from the outside world, and, by your world's terms, I have a unique…bloodline that only I possess." Now this time, there were mutterings amongst both sides of the council, some of disbelief, some of speculation. Danzo stood up again before speaking his mind, "And how do you expect us to believe you were able to defeat four of our best Jounin? Especially Kakashi Hatake of the Sharingan?" Instead of answering him directly, Alex turned to the Hokage and asked, "Is it possible for another…demonstration?" Sarutobi immediately understood what he was suggesting and faced Danzo.

"If you feel that you need to see with your own eyes, I will call for some ANBU to face him here to satisfy your doubt. I personally watched him fight and defeat the four Jounin, who I had asked to fight against him to see his ability in action." Danzo used his only arm to massage his chin in thought, before replying, "Very well, but to make it fair, perhaps I should call for the ANBU, to make sure Mercer-san isn't facing people with…orders." Sarutobi bristled in anger at the implication that he would order the ANBU to go easy on Alex, but before he could speak, the person in question spoke up, "Sounds like a good idea, but if I make a suggestion to make it more interesting, both sides are allowed…to kill. That way, if I truly am a fraud, I would be killed in an instant for deceiving you, and if I wasn't, I would prove myself in front of your eyes." And surprisingly, the council members were actually discussing amongst themselves, taking the suggestion for consideration. Danzo seemed to actually CONSIDER it unlike other times where he put up a front of thinking when he had already made a decision.

The Hokage's jaw dropped for the countless time today. Alex Mercer surprised him more and more at each turn, as he had just successfully tweaked the conditions of the fight to prove himself to the council, gave good reasons why and also helped to erase any further doubt of his abilities. Soon, Danzo finally agreed to the condition, and signaled for four ANBU (_just to let you guys know, these aren't Root ANBU, Danzo underestimates Alex_) to surround Alex. He waited patiently, but was ready to shift to his Claws at an instant.

* * *

In a separate dimension, a shadowed figure watched the events on a widescreen TV, before reaching out to grasp a can, opened it, and started drinking from it. On the label of the can, it read 'Ass-Whooping'.

* * *

When the signal was given, the two ANBU at his flanks charged at him, swords drawn and ready to slice his head off. Quickly, Alex ducked downwards and, shifting to his Claws in but a second, twisted his body to avoid the downward slashes and rolled backwards and thrust both his Claws behind him to impale the unprepared ANBU at his rear, before flipping backwards and pulled his Claws apart, dicing the ANBU waist to shreds. Leaving him to bleed to death on the floor, he ducked down and to the left after another attempted slash, before shooting upwards like attempting an uppercut, but instead impaled the attacking ANBU straight through, the left and right digit of his claw piercing through his shoulders, while the middle pierced right out of the top of his head, killing him instantly. His left arm still stuck in the dead ANBU, he quickly shifted his right into his Blade before expertly blocking and parrying the strikes from the remaining two ANBU with ease, before he flung the dead ANBU to the one on his right, stunning and pushing him back a bit, before knocking the one on his left upwards with his Blade and, before he landed on the ground, sliced right through his chest with his Claw.

He was then suddenly aware of a katana sticking out of his forehead. Behind him, the last ANBU had recovered his senses quickly and, taking advantage of Alex's back turned him, stabbed his katana right through the back of his head. Satisfied, he left it sticking there before turning away when there was a sudden groan of pain from Alex. Bewildered, the ANBU whirled around in an instant to see Alex still standing, groaning with pain while clawing about the back of his head for the katana hilt with his Claw, before he managed to find and pull it out with a loud grunt of pain. Soon, red tendrils started shifting all over his head, and when they vanished, there was no indication of a wound there. He was then aware of Alex glaring at him hatefully, and tried to back away quickly, but only tempted Alex to attack. He leaped forward and, raising his Blade arm, cleaved right through the ANBU from head to crouch, splitting him in half.

* * *

In the separate dimension, the shadowed figure had drained his/her can in a single try, belched with satisfaction, before tossing the empty can over his/her shoulder.

* * *

Panting for breath, he stood up to witness a shocked and awed council, too deep in shock to say anything. Danzo's mouth was agape at the gory and efficient killing that just happened; seemingly forgetting that he had just lost four of his ANBU. Turning around, Alex witnessed the same jaw drop expression on the Hokage's face he saw since this morning. Soon the old man snapped out of it and, facing Danzo, asked tauntingly, "Did you like the demonstration, Danzo?"

Snapping out of his own stupor, Danzo vigorously nodded his head, saying, "Yes, yes, very good demonstration, Mercer-san! Forgive my impudence for asking this Hokage-sama, but Mercer-san should be placed amongst our shinobi ranks immediately!" At this, all the other council members woke up from their shock and immediately raised their own roars of agreement, demanding-no PLEADING for the Hokage to put Alex amongst the shinobi ranks. They knew that this was too good an opportunity to pass up.

The Hokage chuckled to himself, before asking for silence, and continued, "Actually, before I was informed by an ANBU that you had called for a meeting, I was asking Mercer-san if he would like to accept the rank of Jounin, considering his earlier demonstration when I asked for the four Jounin to fight him." "An excellent idea Hokage-sama! All those in favor?" Immediately the entire council followed Danzo's lead, raising their hands to show their desire for Alex to join their ranks. Facing Alex, while signaling for an ANBU to bring a Hitai-ate and a Jounin vest, he then asked in a commanding tone that showed why he was chosen for Hokage, "Alex Mercer, I hereby induct you into our shinobi ranks with the rank of Jounin!" (_cheesy, I know_)

Alex bowed his head, before politely speaking, "It is an honor, Hokage-sama. I will accept the Jounin rank, and will serve Konoha to the best of my ability." Taking the offered Jounin vest and Hitai-ate, he tied the Hitai-ate around his forehead, hidden beneath his hoodie. After an after-thought he kept the Jounin vest on his person but didn't wear it. Maybe when something official or otherwise necessary.

Nodding in satisfaction, Danzo turned back to the Hokage, "Now then Hokage-sama, we should clean up this mess so that we may turn to other matters, such as the case with the de-Uzumaki." He had stopped himself from speaking out 'demon' because Alex was there, and he didn't was aware about the demon in their village. Alex quickly entered the Web of Intrigue and accessed Kensuke's memories about Uzumaki and found everything, including the part where the Kyuubi was sealed within him.

Sarutobi bristled in anger at him, knowing him, he would request Alex to kill the child he considered his own grandson, but before he could speak, Alex spoke out himself with a polite tone, "Forgive me for interrupting, Danzo-san, but I will clear up this mess. After all, I caused it. And if you are referring to the vessel of the Kyuubi no Kitsune, I know."

Ignoring the startled glances sent at him, many wondering how the outsider knew about the demon vessel, he turned to the closest ANBU corpse before reaching out and touched it on the arm. Red tendrils soon traveled down his arm and starting tearing apart the corpse's flesh, consuming them until nothing remained. Disregarding the shocked looks from the council and Hokage, he continued the process with the other three ANBU before facing the Hokage, mouthed 'Kensuke' to answer his questioning gaze about his knowledge of the demon vessel, and turned back to the council. With a shocked voice, Danzo put out the question on every council member's mind, "Mercer-san, just how did you do that just now?"

Smirking to himself, Alex cleared his throat before speaking, "My bloodline is unique in the fact that, not only can I manipulate the biomass in my body, I can consume others to gain their biomass and…their own body." This he demonstrated by shifting himself into the last ANBU, startling the council as a perfect replica of one of the dead ANBU was now standing in front of them. Shifting back to his normal self, he then further explained, "I can only do this with the latest person I consume, but I still retain the biomass of others I consumed. Not only that, but I also gain their memories and, if my suspicion is correct, their bloodlines if they possess any." At this, there was a great uproar as the shinobi council members were now the ones shouting, which was no surprise, since Alex had basically just admitted he could replicate any bloodline by consuming the person.

The Hokage immediately raised his hand for silence, before Hiashi Hyuuga, who until now had sat quietly in his seat watching the events, stood up, gaining everyone's attention, before he asked the question on the mind, "Mercer-san, if what you say is true, then you are saying you can replicate any of our bloodlines, if you consumed the correct person?" Alex nodded, before a polite gesture to ask Hiashi to continue, which he complied, "Then would you please demonstrate this? One of the ANBU you just consumed was a Hyuuga. I wish to see for myself if what you say is true." Complying, Alex closed his eyes, searching for any DNA strand from the ANBU he consumed for anything out of ordinary, before he found and swapped a slightly mutated DNA strand with the corresponding DNA strand in him.

Feeling a strange tingle in his eyes, he opened them to the series of gasps from the council. Looking at a nearby mirror, he was slightly startled to see his normally hazel eyes were replaced with lavender pupil-less eyes, almost giving the appearance of a blind person. Instinctually, Alex quickly found a memory from the same ANBU that showed how to activate the bloodline, before his hands slowly flipped through the necessary hand seals, and whispered, "Byakugan…" Suddenly, veins bulged outwards all around his eyes, earning another series of gasps from the council, the loudest of which was from Hiashi, who had collapsed into his seat with disbelief. This man had just proved to him the ability to replicate the Byakugan, the Hyuuga bloodline, and was able to do so just by consuming another's body and using the DNA to replicate it using his own bloodline. This was possibly even more powerful than the Sharingan!

At the same time, Alex was startled with the new field of vision he had just gained. He could see almost all around him, with a small blind spot at the back of his spine. He could see the pulsing chakra in all the council members' bodies. He could even see through the walls! Quickly though, he turned it off, as he was starting to feel drained from using it. From the ANBU's memories, the Byakugan required chakra to maintain it, and since he was from the outside world, his chakra reserves, as the ANBU coined it, was much smaller than others in this world, which left the draining feeling just now.

Shaking his head, he looked up to see Danzo about to speak, "This is interesting news! With your bloodline, Mercer-san, we could easily rid this world of the demon's existence while gaining its power!" Before the Hokage could angrily retort, Alex spoke up, "My apologies for my interruption, but I am unsure if I am able to do that, Danzo-san." Puzzled, he gestured for Alex to continue explaining, which he complied, "While yes it is possible for me to consume the body, I am unsure as to what effects may arise when my bloodline comes into contact with the demonic chakra. For all we know, it could stop working and thus I will die permanently and not regenerate. If you would forgive my insolence Danzo-san, but I wish to confirm that does not happen before I attempt doing so, or else my bloodline is lost." Alarmed at the possibility of losing a powerful bloodline, the rest of the council immediately voiced their opinion, and forbade Alex from trying.

Sarutobi simply shook his head. Once again, Alex had successfully turned about the council's occasional idiocy and ensured that Naruto would still live. Though he did mention some good points of demonic chakra possibly messing with his 'bloodline'. Seeing as he still seemed to have more to say, he gestured for Alex to speak his mind. Nodding to the Hokage, he turned to the council before speaking up, "Concerning Uzumaki, the Kyuubi vessel, I have an idea, and I hope you, the council, will first let me speak out my idea before making decisions."

At the gesture from Hiashi, who had just recovered from his shock earlier, he continued, "What I personally think concerning Uzumaki, that there are two possible scenarios currently. One is that he is still the container of the Kyuubi, while the other is that Kyuubi indeed took over his body. I would like to suggest that Uzumaki be trained like a normal ninja should, but that seals specifically designed to suppress the Kyuubi's chakra be prepared and carried by ANBU. That way, if he is the Kyuubi, and shows those signs, and tries to destroy the village, its chakra can be suppressed at a moment's notice. On the other hand, if he is still the container, he can become a great shinobi and, if trained to control the Kyuubi's chakra, can easily defend Konoha, the village he is grateful for raising and training him, and if the Kyuubi manages to steal control while he is using its chakra, it is still suppressed if the correct course of action is taken. In other words, as long as the suppression seals are ready, Kyuubi will not be a threat if you train Naruto, either as the disguise or the vessel."

Again, the whole council was deep in thought, considering the pros and cons of training the Kyuubi vessel/disguise, while Sarutobi, for the umpteenth time today, had his jaw loosely hanging at Alex's idea. The immense genius behind the idea was great. It not only gave Naruto a chance for proper ninja training, but if the idea Alex just suggested went according to plan, the Kyuubi would be no threat to Konoha; and Naruto would have no reason to defect if he did was trained the right way. Danzo saw the usefulness in the idea, especially if Uzumaki used the Kyuubi's power to fight Konoha's enemies, then Konoha will experience no threat at all, with the combined power of Mercer's bloodline and Uzumaki using the Kyuubi; then Konoha will rise to the greatness Danzo had envisioned!

Nodding to himself, Danzo stood up again and spoke, "That is a wonderful idea, Mercer-san. It should be implemented immediately. All those in favor?" All of the shinobi council members, with most of the civilian members raised their hands. Some of the civilians had doubts to the plan, but said nothing. "Very well then, motion passed. Hokage-sama? If possible, try and contact your student, Jiraiya, so that we may have the suppression seals Mercer-san suggested ready as soon as possible." Sarutobi nodded; if there was one who could prepare the seals, it was Jiraiya. Idly, he wondered where he was now anyway.

* * *

There we go, fourth chapter is up! And I managed to do it within a day! I rock mwahahahah!!

Anyway, like I mentioned at the start of the chapter, I will be putting more time in finishing my homework, so the time between chapters will be much longer than 1 or 2 days.

Edit: CleverPhoenix, I didn't know wearing the vest was optional! OK I just changed that part. I love the kickass jacket.

Oh and another omake!

OMAKE

Jiraiya giggled madly to himself, peeping into the female section of the hot springs, 'gathering research' for his Icha Icha series. Suddenly, he was aware of a whistling sound, as if something was traveling through the air at high speeds, before a human-shaped missile landed into the female section of the hot springs, throwing up lots of water and minor tremors from the impact. He stared incredulously as a Jounin he recognized ahs Kakashi Hatake emerged before getting beaten up by angry kunoichi. The screams of pain discouraged him from peeping further, but before he could run, he heard a loud groan before the divider between the male and female sides collapsed, and waves of killing intent suddenly focused on him. Turning his head slowly, feeling a sense of impending doom, he saw a multitude of furious kunoichi facing him, Kakashi barely hanging onto consciousness beneath them.

The screams of a male in pain due to incurring the divine female wrath of angry women stopped for a second, before continuing in higher intensity, as if another had incurred the same wrath, while in a separate dimension, a shadowed figure was cackling madly to him/herself, watching the beating the two perverts were currently undergoing.


	6. Missions and Functional Chakra System

Fifth chapter is up!!

Alrighty, poll is done with Chameleon Skin implemented. I should probably mention that with Chameleon Skin, Alex is much harder to track due to not using chakra (actively) at all. It is still possible to track by scent, but not everyone is like Pakkun or the Inuzuka clan. Oh and Alex will display another power I had already decided to implement in the next chapter. Think of the Yondaime's reason of fame.

Oh yeah, sorry if you guys don't like how short this one is compared to the last. This is actually the first half of the original chapter. The reason why I split the original into half is at the bottom of the chapter.

Also, I will stop the power voting for a poll, with a reason you will find near the end of this half-chapter. Read the bottom for the full details of the poll (AGAIN DO NOT SKIP THE CHAPTER TO READ THAT PART).

Finally, Enigma (seriously, no offence, but can you guys without an account, please do my a favor and create one so it becomes much easier for me to reply to you), some authors like to 'implement' an avatar of themselves in some way or another into the story. That was my version.

"My name is Alex Mercer." Character speech

'My name is Alex Mercer.' Character thought

_My name is Alex Mercer._ Event

"_My name is Alex Mercer."_ Web of Intrigue speech

'_My name is Alex Mercer.'_ Web of Intrigue thought

(_My name is Alex Mercer._) AN in story (will be used rarely if possible)

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto (Kishimoto's) or Prototype (Radical Entertainment's) so please, no lawyers.

* * *

Chapter 5 – Missions and Functional Chakra System

_Three days since the 'demonstrations', late afternoon_

Stealthily, Alex stuck close to the trees in southern Fire Country, slowly making progress towards a bandit encampment. Reports said that a large and growing gang of bandits was looting its way through the towns in within the area, and have already razed 3 towns, killing many civilians and taking most of the women for slaves and 'entertainment'. There were rumors that the gang was lead by a nukenin, though it was unconfirmed so far. This B-Rank mission was to rescue the slaves, kill as many scum bandits as possible, and capture/consume whoever was in charge, whether a nukenin or not. Not in any particular order.

When he first reported for a mission two days ago, the Hokage had sent him first to take care of a bandit gang that was a thorn in Fire Country's neck as a sort of 'initiation' mission. Not only did he completely annihilate every single one of them, but also the two B-rank nukenins' from Suna who were the disguised leaders of the gang, which meant the mission should have been A-Rank instead of C-Rank. He only consumed the two nukenin while leaving the corpses of the bandits lying there to…dissuade others from following their example. When asked why he didn't try to claim the bounty on their heads, he simply shrugged his shoulders before asking, "How do you think the Kazekage will accept me walking into his office saying two of his nukenin were dead and, when he asks for proof, I shift my body into one of them?" Sarutobi had to agree that it would be raise questions and may cause trouble, since information of Alex's bloodline was only revealed to him, the council and the six Jounin who had watched the first demonstration.

Of course, it won't stay a secret forever, but it's always nice to be satisfied for the time being that you have a secret weapon.

Since the 'introductory' mission, he was sent on two more similar 'Massacre' missions as he called them before his current one, all with perfect results like the first. Secretly, Sarutobi sent ANBU to the designated area after each report to take pictures and bring them back for the council, who, while some were disgusted by the massive amount of carnage, were satisfied that Alex was quite efficient in making sure there were no survivors to tell any tales.

Leaning against a tree while scanning around with his Thermal Vision for any patrolling bandits, he was suddenly aware of a small heat source on the tree he was leaning against. But he couldn't see anything…Reaching out for it, he was surprised to feel scaly skin and, before he knew it, he was holding a chameleon in his hand. He paused to himself, before a large predatory grin appeared on his face, and consumed the chameleon quickly. Pushing up against a tree, he was grinning madly with glee when his skin and clothes started shifting color until he camouflaged right into the tree. This would make a lot of things MUCH easier to do. Keeping his newly gained Chameleon Skin up, he dashed quickly towards the encampment, and shifting to the side, he let a passing bandit by before jumping at him, covered his mouth while snapping his neck, consuming him without a thought. Looking down, he was disappointed to see that his Chameleon Skin didn't stay on when in Disguise or when making contact with other humans. Still it was quite a hefty skill to use when hiding from view, and could easily sneak up on others without a Disguise at times. Checking the memories, he was startled to see that the leader of the camp was the infamous A-Rank Konoha nukenin, Aoi, the man who had stolen the Nidaime Hokage's legendary Raijin sword. At least that explained, to an extent, how so many bandits were following him, after all, the Raijin was a fearsome weapon that wasn't to be underestimated. Aoi probably intimidated them into following him. However, he won't be much of a problem, the only reason he wasn't considered B-Rank as he should be was because of the Raijin sword.

Following the consumed bandit's memories to Aoi's tent, he quickly informed the guards that he had seen some possible shinobi approaching the camp. Alarmed, they quickly beckoned for him to see Aoi while one of them ran off to wake up those resting. Entering the tent, he saw it was simply furnished, while in the middle was a cot, with Aoi sitting upright on it, cleaning the Raijin's blade. He stood at attention when Aoi looked up, before exclaiming that possible shinobi was closing onto their camp. This got Aoi's attention, and immediately sat up while placing the Raijin into a sheath at his side and rushed out of the tent. But just as he passed Alex in Disguise, he immediately dropped it and, changing his arm to his signature Blade, quickly tried to chop his head off. Only Aoi's shinobi instincts allowed him to dodge before drawing the Raijin quickly to block another strike. Soon both of them clashed their way out of the tent, starting the remaining guard while other bandits started pouring from their tents to watch the swordfight between a stranger and their 'leader'.

It was a match where both sides had no advantage over the other. Alex had more strength and speed, but Aoi's smaller form allowed him to evade and retaliate almost as fast, the Raijin sword putting up a good fight against Alex's Blade. Even when Aoi activated the Raijin's electrical properties, it only caused Alex to have to put slightly more push in his blocking. For some reason his Blade didn't conduct electricity, which was a good thing indeed.

Soon enough, the whole camp of bandits had gathered round them in a circle and was cheering on their 'leader'. While it seemed it could go on forever, Aoi was visibly tiring out bit by bit. No one usually managed to match Alex in stamina when in a swordfight, especially considering that his Blade was a part of himself. Finally, he flung several kunai from his pouch at Alex, who quickly blocked each and every one of them. Before he could return to attacking Aoi, he was suddenly aware of the Raijin stabbing him in the chest before he was electrocuted, for the second time since he entered the shinobi world. It hurt like a bitch, but he got over it after a while. He was starting to get pissed at how many times his chest was going to get impaled or stabbed before getting shocked with enough voltage to kill a normal man. He wasn't a normal man for that matter.

Aoi, feeling victorious, suddenly turned pale when Alex's left arm rose to grasp his right shoulder, still holding onto the Raijin stuck in Alex's chest. He looked at Alex's face and, almost like a trick of light with the fire behind Alex; he nearly fainted at seeing something akin to the Shinigami himself. He whispered hoarsely, "Who…what are you?!" Alex's face twisted into a sadistic grin, before roaring, "A prototype…a Prototype Shinobi!!" With that, he raised his Blade arm and, with Aoi still stuck in his frozen shock, cleaved him from shoulder to hip before smashing his remains off while pulling out the Raijin. He then turned and looked at the traumatized crowd of bandits around him, before setting the Raijin on the floor and started gathering biomass, with a mental note that the tent containing the female slaves/prisoners were on the far side of camp, out of the range of what he was about to do. Time to devastate some bandits…The bandits, on the other hand, soon snapped out of their shock. Some of them started running, while some immediately drew swords and rushed at Alex, trying to take advantage of his unresponsive stance. No matter what they did, they would all die in the next few seconds.

Alex roared to the heavens, "DEVASTATOR!!" before thrusting both his arms out. Large tentacles of biomass sprouted from all over his body, traveling at high speeds in all directions. Many bandits were impaled through their chest, some not getting a chance to scream when their heart was immediately destroyed as the tentacles smashed right through. Some lucky ones got their heads rendered to bits by the swift tentacles, sparing them any further pain. No matter how some tried to flee, the tentacles always managed to impale them and soon, all the bandits were dead from various forms of decapacitation. Eventually, Alex retracted them all and slowly kneeled down next to Aoi's corpse, panting from the exertion from using a Devastator attack. They tire him out even more than his Armored Form. At best he can pull two off before having to rest for a long period of time, and even then needed at least 15 minutes of downtime between each Devastator.

Finally recovering, he proceeded to consume Aoi, and after that, decided to seal the Raijin into a storage scroll he sometimes carried on him if he needed to carry stuff. He felt like surprising the old man and the council with the news he killed Aoi and recovered the Raijin. Slowly he got up, before slowly proceeding to the female prisoner tent while activating the Byakugan he gained from the consumed Hyuuga ANBU to check for any remaining bandits. Satisfied with not seeing any more live bandits, he nearly switched off his Byakugan before he noticed something strange. Normally by now, after three to five minutes, his chakra would have been severely drained and thus would have felt it, but he didn't even feel winded.

Bewildered, he looked down at himself, and was startled to see a functional, ACTIVE chakra system, continuously pumping chakra through his body, and supplying the necessary amount to his eyes to sustain the Byakugan. He contemplated to himself as to how this happen, turning off the Byakugan to ensure he didn't run out of chakra by accident while musing. Eventually, he finally came to a conclusion: After consuming so many shinobi (which he counted as 4 Mist Chunin, 1 Mist Jounin, 4 Konoha ANBU, 2 Suna nukenin and 1 Konoha nukenin), his body must have finally adapted and constructed its own working chakra system for himself.

With this realization, he grinned madly to himself. Though he never said it outloud, he still liked how kickass looking or sounding some of the ninjutsu were when he reviewed the memories of the shinobi he consumed so far. Now he could finally try them out for himself! But before he had his fun experimenting with the vast library of jutus from consumed shinobi, he unhurriedly made his way towards the prisoner tent, scanning about with his Thermal Vision, wanting to conserve Chakra for the Byakugan incase he needed it later, incase there were any stranglers he somehow missed.

* * *

Alright, with that done, I am actually going to pull strings as the author of this story and request for at least 6 reviews before I will update. If I get more than 12, I will like it very much (I love the number 12, consider it a lucky number since it is before the unlucky 13. If anyone can find another usage or reference of the number 12 in this chapter, I will implement an extra power of your choice in addition with the voted choice in the next power poll. If the chosen power is already voted highest, I will implement that with the second highest voted power instead. For this chapter, think of shinobi)

I also want to ask if I should make Alex visit Suna some time in the future before the main events of Naruto start. At that time, he will meet Gaara and may or may not change him. It's all up to me, and I'm not spoiling my plans. I just want some idea from you guys if you want this to happen.

Finally, I have just seen one of the most recent manga chapters, which had a two-page picture of all nine demon vessels. I had completely forgotten about Yugito Nii, the 2-tailed demon vessel, and the 7-tailed demon vessel looks pretty hot to me (think her name is Fū). With this, I have finally decided to let Alex get some love, but with Alex having a 'bloodline', I have decided to let him have a harem (Clan Restoration Act and all that crap), but I wish to see what your response is about Alex having a harem with the following (I will try my best to build a good backstory and abilities for the 7-tailed by the way):

Yugito Nii (2-tailed demon vessel)

Fū (7-tailed demon vessel, if anyone can supply a good last name, I thank you in advance. Oh and changing sealed demon from beetle [someone please tell me if you have ever heard of a tailed beetle, cause it seems so ridiculous] to a badger[more suitable compared to a BEETLE of all things, also thank you Taeniacide for the legend and suggestion]. Author powers have final say.)

Anko (crazy sadistic snake woman that we all know about)

In future I might consider adding in the 3-tailed demon vessel, but from what I have heard the vessel is male, though he sure as hell looks damn feminine in the picture. Oh well, author powers can help in this case, but for now it is just the three above. I may add more if I actually find any around Alex's age. And no, not Kurenai, I'll be leaving her alone. And don't ask why.

Next chapter will be slightly modified from the original second half of the chapter to bring in one of the demon vessels (HINT: Kumo hasn't sent their 'ambassador'…yet [and yes it is crucial to the plot]) who will follow Alex back to Konoha. A specific criminal organization will get a headstart so to speak, and Sarutobi and the council will get shocked with the return of the Raijin (pun intended), while the demon vessel will move in with the Mercers.

Also, the poll I mentioned was for Alex's elemental affinity. The standard five affinities will be there. After I am satisfied with the results or one week later, whichever is first, I will close it, announce the results, and put the powers poll back on. The top two voted affinities will be his main affinities, while the third and fourth affinity will be his weaker ones. Also, can someone help me find other elemental affinities that can arise if two specific affinities are your mains? I know ice is water and wind, but I'm not aware of any others.

FINAL NOTE before I forget, concerning the harem. Do not expect any lemons, maybe some romance and stuff, but no mature stuff. I am not that good, so PLEASE don't, and let me keep my sanity. If I feel confident in the future, I may, but PLEASE don't ask…

OMAKE

Alex's eye was twitching madly. The Uchiha had defected from the village and Alex was sent by the council to retrieve him. Now, this he can do without much complaint, seeing as the Uchiha was a great asset to Konoha. No, Alex's eye wasn't twitching for that reason.

It was because of the Uchiha's attempt to kill him with the Chidori he learnt from Kakashi, modified by the Curse Seal, and was currently the reason Alex's chest was impaled right through by the Uchiha's arm, and got shocked there for the THIRD time since he arrived in the Shinobi world.

Utterly pissed off, and uncaring of the council's orders, he grabbed hold of the Uchiha's arm, keeping him from moving, while shifting his other arm into a Claw before stabbing the ground with it. Soon, multiple Groundspikes shot upwards, impaling the Uchiha through many parts in his body, before he snapped the boy's neck and consumed him. At least this way, Alex mused while opening his newly gained Sharingan eyes, the council won't be too pissed with the Uchiha's death. The kid had ticked him off too much.


	7. Seven tails, Jashin and a Shock

Chapter six is now up! First of all, I would like to apologize for two things. First, I am so sorry for the late update compared to the others, and second, Enigma, there will be no more asking for specific number of reviews for me. That was a one time thing.

Also, concerning the number 12 references last chapter, Shadow of a Life and Rikimaru253 are the first to find the two different references. For those who haven't tried, they were the number of shinobi Alex consumed before unlocking his Chakra System, and the total number of tails if you add the tails of the three tailed beast vessels I mentioned. They are both entitled to a free power implementation which I will try to do ASAP. Shadow has requested for Multiple Disguises while Rikimaru hasn't replied back to me yet. For all the others who tried, I appreciate your attempts, but these two got the references first.

Finally, I thank you all for voting and the (somewhat) constructive reviews. Oh yes, by the way 'justpassingby', while it is logical for Alex to get heavier and denser, do you see him doing that in the game? I am just following game physics, and I have a personal theory that he has a 'stuff-space' for biomass. Oh and, while what you said about the number of Genin is correct, it was not mentioned last chapter. Finally, Master Basher, thank you for the great review, but while I did say one of the demon vessels will move in with the Mercers, I didn't mean Naruto. I mentioned specifically that the demon vessel will follow Alex back to Konoha. Naruto's already in Konoha. And Power of Insanity, thank you for the last name, I'll be using it (thank you again) and I will not confirm if what you just said is true. Finally, while I appreciate the constructive review, Blackhearted Angel, I am adamant at not writing any lemons for now, nor am I going to ask anyone else to assist. And I am currently working on a flight power, I am still working on the details, but it will be ready by the time I put the power poll back on my profile.

"My name is Alex Mercer." Character speech

'My name is Alex Mercer.' Character thought

_My name is Alex Mercer._ Event

"_My name is Alex Mercer."_ Web of Intrigue speech

'_My name is Alex Mercer.'_ Web of Intrigue thought

(_My name is Alex Mercer._) AN in story (will be used rarely if possible)

"**My name is Alex Mercer."** Demon speech

'**My name is Alex Mercer.'** Demon thought

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto (Kishimoto's) or Prototype (Radical Entertainment's) so please, no lawyers.

NOTE: This chapter is rated M due to a specific cultist's liking to swearing (you were warned).

* * *

Chapter 6 – Seven tails, Jashin and a Shock

_Five minutes before the fight between Aoi and Alex, prisoner tent_

Fū Keisei winced slightly at the uncomfortable position she was currently stuck in with the other twenty or so females. She had fled from her former village, the Hidden Waterfall, because the newly elected leader was planning to use her as a weapon to try and conquer some neighboring land for himself. Unwilling to be used simply for war, she tried to flee, but the leader had managed to get another shinobi to place a suppression seal over the one that held the Shichibi in her on the back of her neck. Not only did it prevent her from using the Shichibi's chakra, it had the side effect of messing with her own chakra, playing havoc with her orientation at times. She had barely managed to escape, before fleeing to the southern part of Fire Country to recover.

Unfortunately, the town she had just managed to get to was attacked an hour later, and, caught off-guard, was taken along with the other slaves from the town. Normally she would have kicked those bandits' asses, but with the suppression seal still having an adverse effect on her, she could do little to fight back. Now she was lying on her side in an unlit tent, wrists and ankles tied together behind her. The other women, in various states of dress, were either asleep or trying to comfort themselves, all thinking to themselves how hopeless the situation was.

She shivered in fright as she had recalled the leader, a Konoha nukenin from the slashed Hitai-ate, leering at her earlier with a lecherous grin. No doubt later she was going to be raped by him later at night for his own pleasure. Vaguely, in the back of her mind, Shichibi was trying to reach out for her to soothe her thoughts, but the suppression seal had cut off all contact with her. She was currently helpless in this situation, and soon she was going to be defiled by some bastard.

Fū stopped her attempts at trying to free her hands for a moment when she heard loud cheering outside, somewhere near the leader's tent. No doubt there was a fight going on, probably for entertainment and out of boredom. But after a while, the cheers stopped suddenly, only for screams of pain to reach her ears. Startled, she managed to see the silhouette of a bandit running by, screaming in fright, before a shadow of a long…thing…impaled right through his chest, almost as if it knew exactly where he was, though with the loud screams, it must have made a good guess. Soon, the long shadow retracted to wherever it came from, the bandit's shadow left on the ground. Fū quickly redoubled her efforts to free herself, incase whatever that was came to the prisoner tent.

It was hopeless; whoever had tied the ropes did a good job. Suddenly, she saw another shadow slowly approaching the tent, and Fū quickly held her breath out of instinct, as if the shadow. That was all for naught as the unknown man walked to the entrance of the tent and raised the flap, with the light behind him revealing only a man with a hood of some sort. Almost as if realizing the darkness would be a hindrance, he turned about, reached for a lit torch, and entered the tent, casting light throughout the previously dark tent. The way he held the torch left his face in darkness, but she could still see that he was wearing a hooded jacket and jeans.

He looked about, almost as if searching for something, before reaching out for a knife left on a nearby stool, and proceeded to sever the bindings of the first woman he kneeled down next to, setting the torch upright on a holder near the middle of the tent. Fū's heart lifted with hope, maybe this man was helping them escape? The mysterious man took his time, cutting through the ropes binding the women's limbs together with care, making sure they were not cut in the process. After each one was released, he spoke softly to them, while Fū couldn't hear what was said, she knew it was something like escape, as they had given him a grateful look before running out of the tent, probably to freedom.

Finally, after releasing the other women, the mysterious man kneeled down next to Fū and reached for the bindings before starting to cut through them. She blushed slightly at the closeness of the man, even if it was necessary to reach the bindings. Finally after a few cuts, the ropes fell loose, and she could finally stretch her limbs. Standing up, she turned to her savoir to thank him, but instead blushed.

The reason why was because the man had backed up such that the flame of the torch shed some light on his face, revealing both his Leaf Hitai-ate and, more importantly, his features. She could see a face without any blemish, brown hair slightly peeking out of his hood, and to finish the picture, beautiful hazel eyes that seemed to radiate a calm feeling. Even though she was already eighteen, her adolescent hormones could still wreak havoc on her emotions, such as now, gazing upon the handsome features of her rescuer. She quickly ducked her head, trying to hide the blush on her face while saying a soft, "Thank you…"

The man nodded in return, saying, "You can go back to your family now, the bandits are taken cared of. They won't bother the towns anymore." He was about to turn away when he noticed the Waterfall Hitai-ate she wore, before his eyes narrowed and looked up at her. "What is a Waterfall ninja doing in southern Fire Country, much less in the grasp of bandits…" He spoke with a calm tone, but she could detect a hint of suspicion.

She flinched, before she spoke carefully, "My name is Fū Keisei. I ran away from the Hidden Waterfall. The new Waterfall leader was planning on using me as a weapon to conquer some neighboring land because of my abilities…" She didn't want his rescuer to despise her because of the demon sealed within her. Everyone in the Hidden Waterfall hated her to a degree, but the previous leader had done everything in his power to make sure she could live as normal a life as she could. It was too bad the rest of the Hidden Waterfall had decided he was too old and elected a new one, the same leader that wanted to use her only as a weapon, to be discarded after its usefulness was finished.

Alex on the other hand was wracking his head furiously. This was some serious news. If the leader attacked another country, it was possible for wars between the minor Hidden Villages to spark a small war, and that would be very detrimental to the peace that was working for the past few years. At the same time, he was quickly rummaging through the memories of those he consumed if there was any information of unique abilities amongst Waterfall ninja. Finally he found one that could possibly shed some light on who she really was. This was from one of the consumed ANBU, having idle chat with some other ANBU.

"…_heard that Waterfall has a demon vessel of their own."_

"_Really? Which one?"_

"_I've heard it's the seven-tailed badger. Not sure what's the vessel's name, but I've heard it's a female with light blue-green with a nice tan."_

"_Wonder if she's tanned all over hehe."_

Alex stopped listening any further; he now had all the facts he needed. Waterfall had a demon vessel. The female in front of him had light blue-green hair with tanned skin, also from the Waterfall. She claimed to have unique abilities which were the reason why the new Waterfall leader wants to use her for conquering land. It was too much of a coincidence for it to be anyone else.

"You sound convincing, but perhaps you would like to explain fully…demon vessel of the seven-tailed badger." He smirked inwardly, seeing the shocked expression on the girl's face, almost as if she was convinced she would die, or get sent back to the Hidden Waterfall. "Now now, settle down. I won't do anything to you, but you must tell me everything about this little plan your leader has. I swear that you will be safe as long as you tell me the truth."

Fū was still shocked that the man knew who she was, but the way the man told her she wouldn't be harmed if she explained, she didn't know why, but the way he said that somehow…convinced her to tell him everything, that he was trustworthy. And she did, telling him all she knew about the leader's plan to conquer the other minor Hidden Villages to establish himself as someone on par with the major Hidden Villages, and that she was supposed to be his main trump card to accomplish that.

Alex contemplated to himself what to do now. On one hand, he could leave her here. On the other hand, he could also bring her with him to Konoha. Both had its pros and cons. Leaving her here may avoid bringing a potential threat to Konoha, especially with the demon sealed within her, but also could be leaving her to her fate if she was telling the truth. Bringing her along may cause trouble, especially since it would mean Konoha would have to 'care' for another demon vessel, and after shifting through the memories of the ANBU, he knew it may be a bad idea especially since the civilians only see the demon sealed within the container and not the container him/herself. However, it can also let Konoha gain strength too, considering how tailed demon vessels are huge assets if they have control over the demonic chakra of their prisoners. First he better make sure about something…

"Keisei-san, I must ask you, do you know the intentions of your sealed demon, and how much control do you have over its power?" Confused at the question out of the blue, she replied with uncertainty in her voice, "Well, I know Shichibi's not malicious or anything, and I can control about three tails. But…" He motioned for her to continue, "Just before I managed to get away, one of the ninja managed to apply a suppression seal. Not only did it cut me off from Shichibi's Chakra and presence, it screwed up my own Chakra system."

"Which was why you were here. You couldn't fight back, couldn't you?" She replied with a nod. "Alright, let me look at the seal. Maybe I can help." That wasn't a lie; one of the ANBU had some skill in Fuinjutsu. Slightly cautious, she turned around to reveal the seal at the back of her neck. Relying on the ANBU's memories for reference, he studied the suppression seal with care. After observing the seal and cross-referencing with the ANBU's memories, he reached a conclusion.

"The seal's a really simple one. Just designed to keep your demon's Chakra and presence separated from you, with a basic self-defense mechanism that prevents the person it's applied on from removing it on their own. I can take it off now if you want, but it may sting a bit." Fū nodded affirmatively, before hissing a bit at the sting Alex had warned her about when it was removed from the seal that showed she was a demon vessel. In that exact moment, she could feel the Shichibi's presence in her mind again, which normally would be a relief if not for the headache that accompanied his return.

"**CHILD, are ye ok?!"**

'Ow ow ow…not so loud Shichibi…It's good to hear from you again, but I'm getting a headache when the suppression seal was removed…'

"**Oops, sorry child, I didn't know."**

'It's ok…But Shichibi…what should I do now? I can't go back to Waterfall; we both know that would be stupid…'

"**Hmmm…Well from my point of view, yer best chance would be going with that guy back to Konoha. He seems like a nice guy, if yer hormones are any indication."**

At this, Fū's face lit up like a tomato with her blush. 'SHICHIBI!! I don't even KNOW the guy!'

"**That can be amended…hehe…But seriously, child, he's yer best chance right now."**

'Alright…I'll see if I can convince him…stupid perverted badger.'

"**HEY I resent that!"** Shichibi tried to retort, but Fū had already tuned him out while turning to Alex.

"Thank you again, but…" "Let me guess: you have absolutely no idea what to do now, since you can't go back to your village, so you're about to ask me if you want to come with me back to Konoha." Silence greeted his words, while Fū simply blushed at how obvious her question was going to be.

"**Man this guy's good."**

'Shichibi…' "Err, yeah…"

Alex simply shrugged his shoulders, before turning and started walking out of the tent, speaking over his shoulder, "Name's Alex Mercer, you're welcome to come along. Think you'll be a bit tired, 'specially since the suppression seal took a bit out of you when I removed it." Fū blinked in surprise, before realizing that he was right, she felt a bit worn out, and that he was walking off. "Hey wait!"

"**I'll say it again, this guy is good."**

'Quiet Shichibi…'

"**Oh fine, I'll just leave ya in silence so ye can enjoy walking next to yer love."**

'SHICHIBI!!!' But it was no use; his presence had already retreated from her mind back to his seal, giggling madly to himself like a pervert.

* * *

_One hour later, road heading towards Konohagakure_

Hidan was beside himself with glee. Today he had sacrificed many blasphemers in the name of Jashin, and during the afternoon was approached by a man with a black cloak with red clouds decorating it. The noticeable thing about him was that his face was colored white on the left and black on the right, while a large plant growth similar to a Venus fly trap opened vertically to show his face. He was offered a chance to join the organization he was part of, something called 'Akatsuki' who's goal was to capture and use the nine tailed demons. Hidan didn't give a crap about the tailed demons, but decided to join at the prospect of sacrificing many more to his great god, Jashin. He was on the way to the place the plant man told him to go to if he wanted to join, when he saw two people walking in the opposite direction of him. He would have moved on without care, since Jashin was satisfied with the number of sacrifices so far, if he didn't notice the female's features. Taking out a scroll the plant man had given him and scanning through its contents, he finally found the picture for the demon vessel of the seven-tailed badger.

Grinning madly to himself while putting away the scroll, he reached for his three-bladed scythe on his back. The female matched up with the picture. If he brought one of the demon vessels with him when he joined up, he would definitely be able to ask for more 'search' missions after showing his worth, which at the same time sacrifice more in the name of Jashin! The man was of little consequence, he will be sacrificed for lord Jashin for just getting in the way.

Alex was walking steadily to Konoha, Fū staying silent by his side. He did notice however how she sometimes glanced at him briefly, before turning away trying to hide the blush on her face every time. He smirked to himself, which at the same time made Fū blush more fiercely, this was just amusing. He did however recognize the signs that Fū liked him, maybe a lot. He wasn't like some dense knuckleheaded idiot who couldn't recognize a girl crushing on him badly.

In Konoha, Naruto Uzumaki was just enjoying a nice nap through a boring lecture (_to him at the least_), something about chakra control, which he immediately disregarded as useful for his goal of becoming Hokage (_*face palm* idiot…_) when he suddenly sneezed loudly, drawing attention to himself before getting scolded by Iruka for sleeping. On the other side of the classroom, Hinata blushed fiercely to herself before trying to hide it from her crush. Even with Alex inevitably helping Naruto get stronger, he has the attention span of an ant.

Looking up, he saw a man in a black shirt without sleeves and matching pants, a Hitai-ate tied around his neck, with an amulet of some sort hanging from a chain around his neck. What was cause for concern was the large three-bladed scythe on the man's back, which he was reaching for. He sighed to himself, realizing a fight was imminent, he turned to Fū and said a simple, "Stand clear." He turned back to the strange man while raising and shifting his right arm into his Blade to block an attempt to cleave his head off.

"So, why the hell did you decide to randomly attack me on the road?" Alex decided to enquire the strange man, who didn't visibly seem surprised when his arm shifted, while blocking another attempt, only this time aiming for his chest. "Name's Hidan bastard, and I don't NEED a fucking reason to sacrifice you to lord Jashin!! And you just happen to be in the wrong place in the wrong fucking time!!" The newly introduced Hidan shouted before rearing back for another strike, which was getting old pretty fast to Alex.

'Hmmm, I should probably try to find out more about this Jashin guy. And why did he say I was in the wrong place in the wrong time? Maybe he's after Fū, but he doesn't have the same Waterfall Hitai-ate. Maybe someone who was hired to do so?' Alex didn't recognize the symbol on the Hitai-ate, but he sure as hell could recognize the slash across it: an indicator he was a nukenin.

Sighing to himself for the countless time since the past few days, he decided to end it quickly. Blocking another strike, he quickly ducked down while shifting his left arm into a Claw and stabbed upwards, piercing right through his chest, before slicing downwards with his Blade, severing Hidan's left arm off.

Satisfied with his decapacitation, he turned back to Fū when he was suddenly aware of a whistling sound and a "FUCK YOU" before he ducked, narrowly avoiding Hidan's three-bladed scythe. Rolling forward to grant himself some space, he spun around to see the wounds on Hidan's chest healing, while at the same time his right arm had dropped the scythe for a moment to pick up his left arm and attached it back onto the stump it belonged to. Features twisted in rage, Hidan started shouting after his arm reconnected, "FUCK, you know how fucking painful that was, you asshole?! Oh I am going to fucking cut YOUR arm off! Then you'll feel how fucking PAINFUL that FUCKING WAS!!"

Alex only looked at him in silence, before, "Just how many times did you get your arm chopped off before?" Suddenly puzzled at the weird question, he replied, "A lot of times, why the fuck do you care?!" This only confirmed Alex's suspicion: that this guy was somehow immortal. Maybe it was something to do with that Jashin guy he mentioned?

'Great…of all the people I could have encountered and fought with while on the way back, I just had to get the immortal guy…This is even loonier than when I fought that Gai person…' Alex thought to himself while blocking an overhead attempt from the Jashin acolyte. Cue sneezing by a specific green spandex wearing Jounin far away in Konoha, before a loud declaration to run one hundred laps around Konoha on his hands, and failing that, one thousand pull ups with one hand on the wall, and failing that…yeah let's just return back to the main story shall we?

"WHY THE FUCKING HELL CAN'T YOU FUCKING STOP BLOCKING EVERY FUCKING STRIKE I FUCKING DO YOU FUCKING ASSHOLE?!?!"

Quirking an eyebrow at his very liberal use of profanities, he dodged another strike, but not without drawing a sliver of blood when his waist didn't get away just enough. At this, Hidan started to grin in a maniacal fashion, before bringing the scythe's blade close to him and, consuming the blood, drew a symbol on the ground similar to the amulet he was wearing. At this, his skin turned black with white areas, leading to an appearance, to Alex, similar to a Grim Reaper.

Wary of Hidan's new appearance, he quickly dashed forward before grabbing the end of Hidan's scythe with his Claw and slicing him across the chest with his Blade. At this, he was suddenly conscious of a sharp pain in the chest, as if he was slashed across the chest in the same fashion as when he just attacked Hidan. Then he realized something: Hidan hadn't attacked him, there was no visible wound, and that it was in the EXACT same way he had slashed Hidan. At the look of realization on Alex's face, Hidan cackled maliciously before pushing Alex back roughly, forcing about ten meters of distance between them.

"So you realized it huh bastard? This ritual causes any pain I get inflicted on, to reflect on YOU!! NOW DIE!!" At this, he took out a dagger with ceremonial carvings on it, before stabbing himself right in the heart area, thinking it would take out Alex easily. Of course, he didn't know what Alex was, so when he felt the sharp pain in his chest as Hidan stabbed himself, he staggered a slight bit, while biomass quickly regenerated the wound.

Hidan's maniacal grin immediately dropped at the sight of Alex still standing, before he quickly stabbed himself again to be sure. Again Alex staggered a bit, while the biomass continued to ensure there was no lasting effects. A vein humorously visible, twitching in anger, Hidan screamed in pure rage, stabbing himself relentlessly in the same manner, only to see Alex stagger, before standing upright again.

"WHY THE FUCK CAN'T YOU FUCKING DIE YOU FUCKING SON OF A BITCH!?!!?" At this, Alex glanced up, seemingly at him, but in reality he was focusing on a spot directly in front of Hidan, preparing his biomass to test out something he had never done before. "Because…I can't." Right at that moment, he took a step forward, but, to the surprise of both Hidan and Fū, he dissolved into numerous black tendrils that flew through the air at Hidan in a single second, before reforming to reveal Alex with his MuscleMass power, punching forwards and knocking Hidan out of the ritual circle. He was surprised to feel no pain from that action, before he came to a revelation.

'So…as long as he stays within the circle, his body will reflect any damage or pain onto the opponent that he drew blood from…no matter, if I can't kill him the normal way, I might as well try to consume him' Quickly, he did the same thing as before, dissolving into numerous tendrils that reformed behind Hidan within a single second, revealing Alex with a raised Blade arm. Slashing off Hidan's left arm, causing him to drop the dagger, he then aimed lower, hacking off Hidan's left leg at mid-thigh and his right leg at the knee in a single swipe. Deciding it was enough, he quickly punched his left arm through Hidan's chest, but somehow, he couldn't consume him, as if an otherworldly presence prevented him from doing so. 'Hmmm, must be his immortality. Maybe it was from that Jashin guy? Perhaps Jashin's a god…Oh well, if I can't consume him, I'll just leave him with his dismembered limbs.'

Walking away calmly, while ignoring the loud cussing from Hidan's still active mouth, he approached Fū, who was in a stupor at seeing the display of power in front of her. "Well then, shall we be off?" Dumbly nodding while still trying to comprehend what just happened, the two quickly set off again towards Konoha, leaving the cursing Hidan lying on the floor, with only his right arm attached to his torso, while his other limbs lying all over the ground.

"**Alright, reminder to self: if I ever get released or have some control over your body in any fashion, never piss off Alex."**

'I think that was pretty obvious Shichibi…*shudder*'

"**Yer right, child. Well at least yer boyfriend can easily sacrifice his life to save ya if he wanted, since he can't die."**

'HE'S NOT MY BOYFRIEND!!!'

"**Riiiight, and like you never gave that chance a thought."**

Fū just blushed furiously in embarrassment, before blocking off the stupid perverted badger (**"HEY I RESENT THAT"** She heard coming from Shichibi vaguely) to concentrate on walking to Konoha, while trying in vain to stop blushing whenever she looked at Alex.

* * *

_One hour later, Hokage office_

Sarutobi was puzzled. Immediately after Alex had arrived with an unknown girl, he had requested to meet him alone. He idly wondered who was the girl, while at the same time what was the contents of the scroll Alex had placed on his desk, but he made no move at first. Alex just looked at him calmly while Fū was fidgeting nervously at the studying gaze of the Hokage.

"Hokage-sama, I have some important news for you, concerning the success of the mission you had sent me to do a few hours ago." With that, he reached for the scroll containing the Raijin, and unsealed it while shifting himself into Aoi's form. The shocked silence that greeted him made him smirk inwardly.

"May I present to you, the successfully recovered Nidaime Hokage's Raijin, and proof of Aoi's death."

(_I am so tempted to leave it off here, but nah, I'm not that evil, especially with the late update compared to my earlier updates_)

For the umpteenth time since Alex came to the Shinobi world, Sarutobi's jaw got unhinged. He managed, out of all things that could have happened, to retrieve the Raijin AND prove Aoi's death. Now one of Konoha's most prized weapons was finally returned to them, and one of their traitors killed.

After passing the Raijin to a suddenly appearing ANBU, who reverently held on to it like it was a gift from Kami (_no comment_), Alex motioned for Fū to stand next to him, before he continued, "Hokage-sama, this is Fū Keisei, formerly from the Hidden Waterfall, who has some interesting things to tell you." She nodded with a slight bit of uncertainty, before proceeding to tell Sarutobi of the seven-tailed badger sealed in her, how Alex had saved her, and the newly elected Waterfall leader's plans to conquer the other countries.

When she finally finished, Sarutobi had a thoughtful expression, thinking of the possible consequences of this. 'While the threat of Waterfall alone is small, other countries may take advantage of this and attack each other. This may spark another war…Mercer you do nothing in small amounts. You help reveal the plan of someone who would destabilize the current peace, and also bring a demon vessel seeking sanctuary….' Nodding to himself, he spoke, "Thank you, Keisei-san, this information is invaluable. Now, for your protection, I believe you should take up residence with one of our shinobi, in case the Waterfall leader finds a way to capture you."

Fū seemed unsure for a bit, before nodding in agreement. Then, when she least expected it, the Hokage turned to Alex before speaking, "Alex, I believe it is best that she stay with you for the time being, seeing as you are the one who did help her in the first place." While Alex contemplated before nodding in agreement, Fū's face blushed brightly like a tomato. She was going to live with him?

"**Heh, SCORE!!"**

'Shichibi SHUT UP!!!'

"**Riiiiight, and you don't like the fact you're living with yer looooove."**

Fū's face only blushed darker. 'SH-SHUT UP YOU PERVERTED BADGER!!'

This did not go unnoticed by Alex and Sarutobi. Alex was more amused than anything else, while Sarutobi was silently matching the situation to a scene he read in Icha Icha Paradise. Giggling quietly to himself, he cleared his throat, gaining both their attention, before he continued, "Well, I suppose you two should get going, seeing as it is late and Keisei-san should get acquainted with you sister, Alex. I will give you the money for the mission, retrieving the Raijin and the bounty on Aoi's head, tomorrow morning when you report in."

Nodding, he let Fū exit the office first, amusedly noting that her head was ducked down since her earlier blush still remained on her face, he turned back to Sarutobi who was sighing to himself while staring at the large piles of paperwork. Alex quirked an eyebrow before bluntly speaking, "Don't you have a jutsu or something that makes clones?" After which, he turned away and exited the office, unaware of the astonished look Sarutobi had sent his way.

After all the things that Alex had done in the past few minutes, Sarutobi's brain finally shut down, his final thought being, 'Alex Mercer, you never cease to surprise people.'

When he woke up some time later, he stood up, faced the wall before smashing his head repeatedly against it, repeating the words "Stupid, stupid, stupid" for the next few minutes. After that, he cackled madly to himself as he turned to the paperwork on the table, putting his index fingers together in a cross. Three Shadow Clones appeared next to him before they immediately set to work on finishing his paperwork. Sarutobi himself reclined on his chair, returning to the Icha Icha Paradise book he was reading before Alex had returned, giggling madly to himself like a pervert.

* * *

WHEW finally, it is done! I apologize again for the lateness, but I hope you guys like it!

Details of Alex's new teleportation ability is in my profile

I have closed the poll with the following results:

Earth/Wind: Major affinities

Fire/Lightning: Minor affinities

Now, the affinities will have a continuous effect on him when it comes to his fighting abilities, and can also supplement his attacks (i.e. Alex can actively channel Earth Chakra to his Blade to put more strength into its strikes). Fire and Lightning passive effects will actuate only after a while, Earth and Wind are already actuated.

Earth: Increases durability of his Normal Form, Shield and Armored Form. Increases strength of MuscleMass and HammerFist.

Wind: Increases cutting power of Claws and Blade (enough blows can cut through metal). Able to glide/fly for longer times.

Fire: Lowers fatigue after using Devastator or Armored Form. Any Devastator causes a fire nova to shoot outwards from Alex when used.

Lightning: Improve reaction time. Attackers who manage to strike him with anything metal will get shocked.

Now that the Chakra Affinity poll is over, the Powers poll is up again!

Finally, thank you all again for reviewing, and I will take into account the mixed chakra affinities, but no guarantee I will always use them. Thanks again, and I hope you guys like this chapter!

Next chapter will give Dana some screentime, with a few new pets given to her by Alex, and Kumo's kidnapping attempt, which will fail horribly.

* * *

OMAKE

Hidan growled to himself, still stuck in his dismembered state with his Grim Reaper appearance. Suddenly, he saw a dog walk close to him. Wondering what the heck it was doing, he was suddenly very aware of what it was going to do when it raised one of its hind legs. "OH HELL NO!" It was too late, the dog peed on his face, before trotting over to his left arm that looked like a bone due to its skeletal appearance, picked it up in its mouth, before the dog jogged off with its prize in its mouth.

There was a moment of silence before a whole cacophony of curses and swear words suddenly invaded the air, causing birds to screech and fly off their trees in fright. In villages within a five mile radius, parents were sweating furiously while trying to explain to their young children what those 'strange words' they heard were.


	8. New Pets, Elements and Kumo’s Attempt

Plague: Chapter seven, must I say more? Well, other than a HUGE apology at the lateness of this update. I had a minor case of writer's block, and I had an idea for another story, but it hasn't taken flight yet. Not to mention the schoolwork. Oh and if you didn't notice a moment ago, I am now Plague! But with a reason. Meet Roamer, basically the personified form of my younger brother who somehow found out about me doing this itsy bitsy fic and decided to help out. Just for some ideas and what not.

Roamer: Yeah yeah, whatever you say.

Plague: Don't make me put you in the 'special' room. Anyway there's a surprise later in the chapter!

Roamer: Also, for Plague's sake, please stop asking about any pairings for Naruto. Plague's got enough on her lap already, and Alex is the main character here, helloooo people. *gets smacked on the head by Plague* OW what was that for?!

Plague: You told them about my gender. IT WAS SUPPOSED TO BE A SECRET!!

Roamer: …Oh.

Plague: Anyway, *ahem*, thank you all very much for the reviews! Oh and poll is finished with Poisonous Secretions up! I'll bring the power poll back up once I get some new idea for powers; you guys make me run through my ideas too quickly :(.

"My name is Alex Mercer." Character speech

'My name is Alex Mercer.' Character thought

_My name is Alex Mercer._ Event

"_My name is Alex Mercer."_ Web of Intrigue speech

'_My name is Alex Mercer.'_ Web of Intrigue thought

(_My name is Alex Mercer._) AN in story (will be used rarely if possible)

"**My name is Alex Mercer."** Demon/Beast speech

'**My name is Alex Mercer.'** Demon/Beast thought

Plague: I do not own Naruto (Kishimoto's) or Prototype (Radical Entertainment's) so please, no lawyers.

Roamer: Or the Cybeasts.

Plague: …YOU JUST RUINED THE SURPRISE!! (starts to choke Roamer while the screen fades to the chapter)

* * *

Chapter 7 – New Pets, Elements and Kumo's Attempt

_Mercer apartment, half an hour later_

Alex was reclining on the couch, bored as hell with nothing to do. After he introduced Fū to Dana during dinner, which Dana had cooked, the two women seemed to bond instantly. Now they were sitting at the table, chatting with each other while letting out the occasional giggle. He didn't want to know what they were talking about. Females talk about the weirdest things at times. Sometimes, they talk about stuff that confuses others, when it seems to make perfect sense to them.

Yup, Alex REALLY didn't want to know what they were talking about.

He idly wondered where Fluffy was, he hadn't seen it since yesterday, before he was suddenly aware of a set of sharp jaws chomping on his right leg, which he had left dangling over the side of the couch. Looking down, he was surprised to see Fluffy, but with a new appearance. Dana was apparently bored while he was away. Fluffy now sported a demonic-looking skeletal head, with a constantly grinning visage. His eyes were sunken in, but he could see a hint of sickly green in his eye sockets. It made for a really scary façade.

The rest of its body was no less grotesque. Dark skeletal plates lined sickly pink flesh, which oozed gross green fluids slowly, giving a sick appearance. Its front legs more resemebled clawed arms now, three bony extensions on the back of each claw adding to the deadliness it had. Large spikes grew from his back, which look like they could easily impale someone on them, yet spread such that someone could ride on it if he positioned himself properly on its back. He was easily the size of a wolf. In fact, the only reason why Alex knew it was Fluffy was because of the feel of the Blacklight virus in him, and that the word 'Fluffy' was inscribed on his forehead.

Getting annoyed that his leg was now a chewtoy, he quickly Tendril Shifted over to the table where the two females were still talking, before facing Dana. "Dana, just HOW bored were you when you decided to mutate Fluffy?" Fū was slightly confused, wondering what Fluffy was, before letting out an "eep!" of surprise when the large creature rushed at Alex, tackling him to the ground before slobbering all over him.

'I knew letting Dana have a pet will eventually result in me getting slobbered…urgh…'

Dana, at the least, had a sheepish look on her face. "Heh, sorry bro. I guess I just wanted to experiment with something and went a bit too far." Letting out a whistle, Fluffy immediately got off Alex and was at Dana's side in an instant, drool dripping from the corners of his mouth. Alex got up and wiped the slobber off, before glaring lightly at Dana, which slowly turned to a smile, saying, "Well, at least I know you'll be in good hands, or claws in this case." "Oh ha ha, very funny, Alex." "So you can't take a joke like the one you used on me?" "What joke?" "The one time my arm got cut off." "You deserved it that time." "So I can't joke with my sister is it?" This eventually degenerated to normal sibling arguing.

Fū just blinked in surprise, lying on the floor after getting scared of her chair when Fluffy 'attacked' Alex. The guy who had saved her, who was practically unkillable, who decapacitated an immortal religious guy with ease, was now good-naturedly bickering with his sister, like a…normal person.

"**Yawn…that was a nice nap. What I miss child?"**

'When did you take a nap?'

"**Right after we left the old man's office. Knew ye'd be ok, 'specially with yer boyfriend right next ta ya."**

'For the LAST time, Shichibi, he's NOT my boyfriend!!'

"**What're the chances that'll change in the future, child? He he he…"**

'Stupid perverted badger…'

"**I TAKE OFFENCE AT THAT!!"**

'That was the point!!' With that, she tuned out the perverted demon in her, though she vaguely heard mutterings of **"no respect fer elders…"** or something. Looking up, she let out another "eep!" of surprise while backing up slightly, as Fluffy was crouched right in front of her, sniffing at her in curiosity, his grinning visage never changing, before he opened his mouth and gave her face a good licking with his large tongue. She found this very ticklish however, and soon was laughing hard while trying in vain to get Fluffy to stop.

The Mercers stopped their argument at the sudden sound of laughter, before chuckling to themselves at Fluffy's show of 'affection' for Fū. Then Alex had a sudden thought. Turning to Dana, he slowly spoke, "Dana…if Fluffy's this big, then where is he sleeping?" Originally, when Fluffy was still a normal-sized dog, he would sleep at Dana's bed side. Now though it would be a problem.

Dana shrugged her shoulders, before replying, "Eh, since we had a backroom with nothing in it yet, I just let him sleep there first. Had a bit of difficulty doing that at first. And on the point of sleeping, where's Fū gonna sleep?" Alright, he hadn't thought of that either. Thinking for a while, he shrugged. "Well, since it's late, I don't think I can purchase a new bed right now, and I haven't got paid for that last mission yet. Eh, I'll sleep on the couch; let Fū have my bed for now. Tomorrow morning, I'll go to the old man's office to get the payment, and then go buy a new bed. Think we'll need to get Fū some clothes too."

Dana looked thoughtful for a while, before speaking up, "Sounds good, but speaking of Fū, shouldn't you help her now?" Alex looked confused for a moment, before he was reminded of Fū's situation when another bout of laughter started. Chuckling to himself, he gently patted Fluffy on the head, placating him a bit, before shooing him away to stay next to Dana. Turning back to Fū, he laughed silently to himself at the large amounts of dog (he idly wondered to himself if Fluffy could even be considered a 'dog' now) slobber on her, before reaching for a towel that Dana had mysteriously supplied from the bathroom, and raised it up for her.

Surprised that the tongue assault had stopped, Fū looked up before blushing deeply, as the man who she had developed a…dare she say it...crush on, like a kid.

"**HA! YE ADMITTED IT!!"**

'SHUT UP SHICHIBI!!'

Shyly, she took the towel before furiously wiping the drool off her, at the same time trying to hide her blushing face from Alex. Of course, this did not go unnoticed by both Mercers. Alex just smiled to himself, knowing this would go on for a while more, and it was still funny, while Dana was filing this away in her mind for blackmail, and also wondering if she could hook her brother up with Fū. She seemed like a nice girl.

"Anyway Fū, you can sleep on my bed for tonight. Tomorrow I'll be sure to buy a new one, then you can sleep in Dana's room." Snapping out of her shyness, she stuttered in reply before stopped by Alex's raised hand. "You're our new roommate, I'm alright with sleeping on the couch. And I don't think you would appreciate Fluffy deciding to come out of his room and sleep on you by accident." What he was referring to was when Fluffy had gotten up in the middle of the night and slept on the couch on the night they had settled in, for some unknown reason, but it had also managed to crap on it. The stink on it finally washed off yesterday. Dana laughed weakly.

"Don't worry bro; I'll lock Fluffy in the backroom from now on at night." He nodded in response before suddenly aware of a loud crash from the backroom, followed by a bird screech and a roar. He was suddenly startled, before glaring at Dana, who was sheepishly smiling, waiting for an answer. "Err, apparently Fluffy somehow made some new friends, and well, they kinda followed him back after he somehow managed to infect them…"

Face palming himself at the new revelation of Dana acquiring some new 'pets', he just groaned out a response, "Alright, I don't care what you do with them Dana, but right now I'm tired. I'll just go sleep on the couch now…You tell Fū about our unique situation." Ignoring Fū's sounds of protest, he just about faced, walked over to the couch, collapsed on it and immediately was fast asleep.

Sighing to herself, Fū knew that she would still have to sleep on Alex's bed, seeing as he was currently asleep anyway. At this, Shichibi snickered audibly in the back of her mind before she promptly closed the connection, while slightly blushing at the implications of what she had just thought. However, she did recall him mentioning some 'unique situation' before he went to sleep.

Dana sighed to herself as Fū turned to her with an inquisitive gaze. She knew Alex was getting back at her for getting him slobbered by Fluffy. He always did have a weird sense of revenge.

Though, seeing him get slobbered by Fluffy was still worth it.

"Alright, seeing as Alex gave me the honor of explaining things, first let me tell you what happened three and a half months ago…"

* * *

_One week later, Hokage tower, afternoon_

Alex groaned lightly to himself. He had just come out from a meeting with the council, which had finally caught wind of the events of Alex's mission a week ago. Naturally they wanted a first-hand account, just to be sure, and somewhat surprisingly some of the civilian council members fainted at his…detailed description of a Devastator. Danzo was naturally intrigued by this. Of course, who wouldn't, considering the fact it literally devastates armies.

Nonetheless, they congratulated him on recovering the Raijin, before they started talking about Fū. As per usual, Danzo suggested using her as a weapon, before Alex had rebutted, saying that this is a similar scenario with Uzumaki. If they were treated well, and if trained properly in controlling their demon's chakra, they would no doubt be truly loyal to their village, grateful for giving them accommodations when other villages did not, and would have no thoughts of betrayal on their mind. Danzo, for his credit, understood what Alex had meant, before suggesting that she gain access to some B to A-Rank Jutsus, to show that they . One of the more…grudge bearing civilians tried to protest, saying that the demons shouldn't get more power as it is, before he was swiftly cut down by Alex after Tendril Shifting to him.

On that note, he winced slightly at the memory of the uproar after a long period of deaf silence, the whole council having witnessed him Tendril Shifting and found it startling similar to the Yondaime Hokage's Hiraishin (_Flying Thunder God_). Sarutobi, never seeing him display that particular ability before, was unsurprisingly curious of it, and whether it was as good as the Hiraishin. After getting a short explanation what the Hiraishin was to Alex, he weighed the pros and cons between the two, before stating that the Hiraishin was still the better version, since his own needed the location to be within his line of sight while the Hiraishin only required a special kunai, but as long as the enemy didn't realize what the Tendrils meant, he was probably just as deadly as the Yondaime Hokage when it came to surprise attacks.

Sighing to himself again, he slowly made his way back to the apartment. He had gone for a mission in the morning, and JUST when he got back, the damn council had to call the meeting. He was going to enjoy a good rest now…This was, of course, neglected immediately when a wolf easily the size of a bear crashed right into him and started licking his face, while a falcon easily the same size as the wolf was hovering in the air above them, flapping her wings at times to maintain altitude.

He groaned lightly and smiled at the slightly ticklish feeling from getting licked, before he gently rubbed the wolf's ears, which he enjoyed immensely, and then he got back up after placating the wolf slightly. Idly, he chuckled to himself at how Dana's new 'pets' seemed to like him more than her.

He still hadn't figured out how she managed to encounter the two, but still liked them. The wolf, which the siblings had named Gregar, had powerful limbs, and could nearly catch up with Alex at full sprint. The falcon, named Falzar, could fly high and fast in the sky, which was much greater after Dana's mutating.

Then there was the mutation. Before, they were good and strong animals. Now, they were deadly in every way. Gregar grew by quite a bit, his claws strong like metal, while his tail grew more rigid and thickened slightly, with a sharp spike at the end which could pierce metal with the right force behind it. Five tufts of fur formed into spikes surrounded his neck, placed at forty-five degrees apart, such that the middle one was perfectly aligned with his snout, and two spikes almost displayed a straight line across his face. On his snout, a red gem in the shape of a six-pointed star displayed itself prominently, like a symbol of power.

Falzar grew from a slightly-larger-than-average falcon, to an enormous one. Her newly-strengthened feathers were sharp as a blade, which she found out along with powerful regenerative powers when she swung her wings at the right speed, forcing a volley of sharp feathers to fly forward, which was replaced quickly with new ones in her wings. A green gem in the shape of a mask of sorts presented itself on her breast, similar to Gregar's star.

Dana didn't have any idea at all how to mutate them other than improving their bodies and stuff, before Alex got an idea. While he had been shifting through the memories of the shinobi he had consumed, he came across a memory about chakra affinities and had approached the Hokage for a way to find out what one's chakra affinity was. After a test, the Hokage just raised an eyebrow at the results, since he started to get used to Alex's natural 'affinity' for surprises.

It turned out that he had FOUR affinities, which was extremely rare but not unheard of. Two of them were weaker than the other two however, so it slightly worked out in the end. Earth and Wind were his stronger affinities, while Fire and Lightning were his weaker two. He chuckled mildly to himself, making a joke that all the times he got stabbed in the chest with a Lightning weapon or jutsu must have given him the affinity. At least one of the other three affinities was probably the result of either mutating or consuming the shinobi.

As to how this concerned Falzar and Gregar, he had slowly infused elemental chakra, after being taught how by Hiruzen, into their bodies while Dana stood by, slowly mutating the two animals so that they accepted the chakra easily. He had infused elemental chakra of one stronger and one weaker affinity into each. Earth and Lightning for Gregar, with Wind and Fire for Falzar. If they were deadly before, they were destructive now.

Gregar showed signs of their 'experiment' working before Falzar. He had roared and smashed his claws into the ground, causing large spikes similar to one of Alex's devastators to shoot up. After that, Falzar followed up with giving her wings a great swing, causing winds close to a hurricane's force to smash into Gregar and forced him back quite a distance, for payback since one of the ground spikes Gregar had formed nearly clipped her wing. Thus started the 'rivalry' of sorts between the two pets.

He was still puzzled by how Dana managed to mutate Fluffy into what was best described as a plague beast; though he did have a suspicion Fluffy had a disease before he got infected with the Blacklight virus. Now, he could spew toxic spit from his mouth, and oozed out fluids filled with all kinds of poisonous chemicals. Of course, he could decide when to use the toxic spit, or else Fū would have been in danger when she got a good licking from it a week ago.

Speaking of Fū, they managed to buy the new bed and placed it in Dana's room for Fū. After that, Alex experienced first hand the horrors of shopping with women. He had no problem carrying the bags which he was forced to carry, but his ears were still ringing from the squeals from both women whenever they saw something they liked. The shopping trip took up at least six hours, and spent nearly half of the money he got from retrieving the Raijin and eliminating Aoi, which was a LOT (both the reward money and the money the two women spent).

Fū had settled right in with the Mercers and their pets, taking a liking for Falzar quite quickly for some reason. Of course, she still retained her strong feelings for Alex, having to hide her blushes just by looking at him at times, like some fangirl. Other times, she took to stroking Falzar's feathers while explaining her feelings to it, just needing someone or anything to speak to, so that she wouldn't have it all bottled up. Of course, what she didn't know was that Alex, having the pure strain of the Blacklight virus, and Dana, having the special 'command' strain, could access the memories of their pets, which led to immense amounts of amusement for Alex, since Fū didn't know she just confessed to him indirectly. He liked her, but until he found a way around infecting her, he wasn't going to risk her health by having a relationship with her.

"So, did you two have fun today?" Gregar licked his hand in reply, while Falzar gave a low hum in response. They were allowed to wander the village while Alex was away on his mission, as long as they returned to the apartment by mid-afternoon. He chuckled to himself lightly, before entering their memories, wanting to see how their day went. It seemed like a nice 'stroll in the park' type of day, though he did chuckle a bit when the Beast Duo, as Dana had affectionately named the two, decided to drop onto the Shinobi Academy roof, one of the classes outside doing some throwing practices.

Out of mischief, Falzar had manipulated the winds before the targets with a few flaps of her wings, causing every thrown shrunken or kunai to miss, which caused much confusion, especially concerning one with hair in the style of a duck-butt, which they officially called that one 'Duck-butt'. Apparently he was supposed to be the 'best', which caused a large number of fangirls to shout in disbelief that something was wrong. The two had to wait for an hour to get their hearing back, especially after a pinkette, appropriately named 'Banshee' by the two, screamed the loudest. They actually went deaf for a few seconds, even from the roof of the Academy.

Alex chuckled lightly to himself at that small bout of mischief, but made no move to scold them. It was too funny. When he came to the end of the memories of the day before they returned to the apartment, his attention was suddenly caught upon the sight of a Kumo shinobi appearing to be chummy with a Hyuuga. He vaguely recalled that Kumo had sent a representative to initiate peace talks with Konoha today, but didn't see the man in person because of that blasted council meeting. What his main attention was on however was the strange dark aura that Falzar and Gregar had seen coming from the representative. Looking closely, he could see hints of malice well hidden in the shinobi's face, but to a master of disguise by total control of one's body, it was easily identifiable to Alex.

'Greeaaaat…this could be bad…I better tell the old man.' Nodding to the Beast Duo, he quickly about faced and ran in the direction to the Hokage's Tower, before jumping after a few seconds, hands reached up were grasped by Falzar's talons, which took care not to harm her master, before she flew towards the Tower at a great speed, Gregar keeping pace on the ground, dodging people and random merchant carts with ease.

* * *

_Hokage's Tower, ten minutes later_

Hiruzen giggled to himself like a pervert, reclining on a couch while smoking from his pipe, reading another book in the Icha Icha Paradise series, while four Shadow Clones were working tirelessly at his desk, getting rid of the dreadful enemy known as paperwork. He was suddenly aware of a screech from outside the window he was facing, before looking up from his smut to see a large falcon flying towards the window, with Alex gripping onto its talons with his hands. Scrambling to his feet while hiding his book, he quickly opened the window for Alex before taking cover. Seeing the opening provided gratefully from the old man, he swung his legs forward and made a near-perfect landing straight through the window (_what? He does all kinds of stunts in the game, makes you think if he was an acrobat in a past life…_). Falzar hovered outside the window peeking inside, with Gregar next to her, having arrived on the roof outside the window just a few seconds after Alex's arrival. Dusting himself off while standing up, he turned to Sarutobi before speaking, calling the old man Hiruzen at his request.

"Hiruzen, I have the feeling the Kumo representative is here for a different reason. The peace talks may be a front."

Sarutobi immediately got serious, before asking for evidence, which Alex gladly provided, stating the dark aura the Beast Duo had seen with their eyes, and the hints of malice Alex had seen hidden in his visage. He took this in before thinking thoughtfully, finding a problem in the scenario and voiced it, "If that is so, then what IS the Kumo shinobi's objective? We can't just take him in for interrogation."

Now Alex was stumped, this could pose a problem. Suddenly, he got an idea before facing Falzar and dived into her mind, finding the memory again and tried to see if Falzar had heard what the Kumo shinobi had said, before paling slightly. Returning to his own body immediately, he turned to face Sarutobi with a grim expression. "Hiruzen, the Kumo shinobi was asking about the Hyuuga clan head's children. I have a suspicion Kumo is going to attempt to kidnap one of Hiashi's children, in hopes of a powerful one, to breed their own Hyuuga."

This set Sarutobi on guard. He knew that the current Sandaime Raikage was a malicious man, but his term was nearly over, with rumors of a much better Raikage about to succeed him. He had a feeling the current Raikage was attempting this so as to stay in power. He was always a bit addled in the head, especially concerning bloodline limits. However, how were they to go about doing this? If they simply took him to interrogation like he mentioned, it would cause Kumo to 'retaliate' at the 'audacity' before making unreasonable demands. No, the Kumo representative had to be caught in the act.

"Alex, this is serious. Very serious. We need to catch the man in the act, but we also need to have him alive, so no consuming. I will need you to stand guard around the Hyuuga compound. If you succeed, this will count as an A-ranked mission. We must NOT kill the Kumo representative, or else they will make absurd demands for 'repayment'. If I know the Raikage, he will deny everything unless the evidence is right in front of him. I suspect he will strike at night, but you should go now to be sure. If we catch him, and he refuses to speak, you may consume him for the memories, but we will need a good bit of acting after that."

"I understand, Hiruzen. I will not let you down." With that, he Tendril Shifted out of the window, before Gliding in the direction of the Hyuuga compound, Falzar and Gregar keeping up behind him. Sarutobi sweat-dropped as Alex took his leave, through the window. 'Why don't ANY of my best Jounin actually go through the door like everyone else…' He included Gai even though he did go through the door, literally smashing through it while loudly exclaiming about the Flames of Youth. Shuddering, he just reclined back onto the couch while taking out his Icha Icha Paradise book, before perverted giggling started to fill the room again.

* * *

_Four hours later, night, Hyuuga compound exterior_

Alex made his fiftieth patrol around the Hyuuga compound, paying close attention to areas near the Hyuuga heiress' room. He had informed Hiashi before hand, but warned that if the whole compound was on alert, it may alarm the Kumo shinobi. Hiashi understood, before recommending an increase of patrols near his children's rooms. Alex himself will have to guard the outside.

Falzar was assigned to keep to the sky; literally having a bird's eye view is very useful.

Gregar used his latent Earth powers to feel the vibrations in the earth (think Avatar's Toph), which was useful if the Kumo was moving on the ground and not by tree jumping.

Alex was suddenly aware of a blood smell, which seemed to be…damn it. He quickly raced towards the younger daughter's room, which had a distinct smell of blood spilt, possibly the guards'. Soon, he caught sight of a silhouette hoping out of the room's only window, carrying a bulky bag over his shoulder. Sending a mental command for Gregar to rush to his position, he Tendril Shifted into the silhouette's path.

Raizen (_Plague: This was a totally random name off the top of my head. Any relation with any person live or dead or if it even is a real name is purely coincidental_) laughed silently to himself. It seemed too easy to capture the younger daughter. There were an unusually large number of guards patrolling, but he passed it off as the clan head's paranoia for his children or something. Still, he managed to bypass most of them and had to kill one before quickly kidnapping the child. He laughed evilly to himself, once he gets the child to the Raikage, he will surely be rewarded immensely.

He was suddenly aware of a man abruptly appearing in his path, blocking the way, while a large wolf soon landed next to the man, growling at him. The man looked up silently at him, before speaking, "What are you doing with the Hyuuga clan head's child…"

'DAMNIT!' Raizen thought while gritting his teeth. The unusual number of guards wasn't a coincidence; they were aware for him! 'No matter', he thought, putting down the sack with the child while discreetly going through hand signs, 'I'll just kill the interference and his dog.' Alex narrowed his eyes at the Kumo shinobi's hands moving, but before he could do anything, the man shouted while thrusting his arm forward.

"Raiton: Raijingeki!!" (_Roamer: Another made up idea, but by me this time. If there really is one, review or message us so we can change it ASAP_)

A bolt of pure lightning shot straight towards Alex, who braced himself, seeing as he probably couldn't dodge in time. He only hoped Gregar could take care of the man while he was regenerating.

All this was for naught as Gregar leaped in front of him, before pointing his tail right at the bolt. As it made contact, the biggest surprise came to both shinobi as the bolt was absorbed into the tail and conducted itself downwards into the Beast, with no apparent harm coming to it. Gregar immediately opened its mouth as electricity started to conduct through the five spikes, while a ball of lightning started forming a small distance from his open mouth. Roaring, he thrust his head forward, while the electricity in his five spikes immediately shot to the ball of lightning, and fired itself forward right at the Kumo shinobi. He quickly tried to dodge, only for the lightning blast to vaporize his left arm, cauterizing the wound with searing pain.

Screaming, he clutched the stump of his arm with his remaining hand while rolling on the ground, before he was suddenly aware of a presence above him. Gulping, while still feeling tortured by the pain, he looked up to see the wolf right above him, almost grinning with a malicious face. Of course, this distracted him from the small ball of earth which hovered behind him, before finding himself losing consciousness as it hit him right in the back of his neck.

Alex shook his head before walking calmly to the sack to free the child, while contacting Falzar mentally to go get Hiashi. He almost pitied the man for the torture he was about to receive while getting interrogated.

* * *

_Two days later, noon, Hokage Tower_

Alex groaned lightly while rubbing his head with the new influx of information. After reporting back to Hiruzen the other night with Hiashi, while the unconscious Kumo shinobi was being carried on Gregar's back, the Kumo shinobi was sent for interrogation quite hastily by Hiashi, seemingly for revenge for attempting to kidnap his child.

He vaguely remembered a kunoichi with purple hair in a distinctive hairstyle and wearing revealing clothes staring at him the other time, while shuddering slightly at the lust he had noticed in her eyes. From what he knew, she was supposed to be VERY sadistic, and brought that out in her interrogations too.

After that, Alex went back home and immediately dropped down to sleep until early afternoon the next day. The night patrolling tired him out quite a bit.

Then, the next morning, the old man had sent a messenger to Kumo, with the detailed results of the interrogation and irrefutable evidence that the Raikage couldn't deny; with a statement that Konoha was furious of the deception and wanted compensation, and a threat that this transgression would not be forgotten easily. Just half an hour ago, the messenger returned with interesting news, which was why Alex was called for, seeing as it concerned him to an extent.

Apparently, Kumo was furious with the Raikage, because they were actually considering being Konoha's allies, but the Raikage had to go and ruin it. They ousted and executed him, while the next Raikage was immediately sworn in, who had sent a message with Konoha's messenger that they were deeply apologetic of the late Sandaime Raikage's actions, and that they were currently in discussion as to how to compensate Konoha. He did mention that they were leaning to the idea of sending one of their own ninja as compensation, but as to who would be sent, if it was done, would be…questionable.

Alex sighed to himself, while idly scratching Gregar's ears, which he enjoyed it immensely. He had read between the lines, and if it said it was 'questionable', it seemed like an outcast of sorts may be sent from Kumo as compensation. Falzar perched herself on a nearby chair, while Fū, who had tagged along since she had nothing to do, slowly ran her fingers through the falcon's feathers, with no complaint at all. Of course, the fact that Falzar conveniently blocked Alex's view of Fū's occasionally blushing face had nothing to do with it whatsoever.

Speaking of the Beast Duo, it appeared the two weaker affinities he had infused into them were showing results. Gregar obviously could absorb most electrical attacks with his tail, which was useful, seeing as it caused no harm to himself. He didn't require any absorption of lightning attacks to use lightning himself, just that it would power the lightning attack by a lot. Falzar had lit herself on fire, without hurting herself, to attract the Hyuuga clan's attention the other night, but if the Duo could do anything else, they haven't shown it yet.

"I take it that will be all, Hiruzen?"

"Yes, I believe so…"

Suddenly, an ANBU Shunshin-ed into the room, before stating a simple message, "Hokage-sama, Mercer-san, the Council requests your presences."

Both men bit back a groan while slowly making their way out, grumbling with a low voice about 'blasted old farts' and 'useless idiotic council'. Fū giggled at their actions, before making her way out while beckoning for the Beast Duo to follow her. Wonder if she could find any jutsu in the Shinobi Library that would be useful for her; and if there was anything for the Beast Duo to try and imitate for themselves.

* * *

Plague: FINALLY finished!! I apologize (again) for the lateness! Think this is my second longest chapter so far!

Roamer: That, and she still can't get that other story idea she mentioned in the beginning out of her head.

Plague: Shush you. Anyway, the next update will…crap I forgot what was supposed to come next chapter!

Roamer: (skims through a list titled 'Things-to-do-before-main-Naruto-storyline') Yugito?

Plague: Hmm, maybe. Was considering doing that next NEXT chapter, but eh. Any others?

Roamer: Anko?

Plague: Not sure when to do that, considering I'm not very sure about how to go about doing that in the FIRST PLACE.

Roamer: What about Alex's jutsu?

Plague: Hmm, good idea. Add in the Beast Duo getting more stuff they could do too.

Roamer: Alright, Yugito, Alex learning more jutsu AND the Beast Duo getting more stuff it is. Now then, here's the question for this chapter:

What is Fluffy's new unclean appearance from? (Hint: game it was from was released in June)

Roamer: Ok, now what about the omake?

Plague: Crap…errrr…crap again.

Roamer: …Never mind, I'll do it.

Plague: Thanks, my adorable little brother!

Roamer: Don't call me that…

OMAKE

Sarutobi giggled madly like a pervert while his Shadow Clones continued to work on his paperwork. Suddenly, two female assistants brought in towering stacks of paperwork and placed them on the desk for the Shadow Clones, while turning about to go out when they suddenly caught sight of the small orange book in the real Sarutobi's hand. "Hokage-sama…" He suddenly heard with a chill going down his spine. Slowly looking up, he saw the two assistants glaring at him with an evil glint in their eyes.

Moments later, Sarutobi groaned in sadness as he himself worked on the enemy to all Kages known as paperwork, while the two assistants checked in time and again after dispelling his Shadow Clones to make sure he 'wasn't slacking off'. In other words, read Icha Icha Paradise while letting Shadow Clones do the work.


	9. Two Tails, the Academy and an Old Face

Plague: After a long as hell unnecessary delay, I am BACK with a major over-due update, people!!

*crickets chirping*

Roamer: …Crickets?

Plague: (face faults, before jumping back up with no sign of hurt at all) Alright, never mind, they'll find out I'm back later anyway. And I am SOOOO sorry of the big-as-hell delay in the update. MOVING ON…

Roamer: Yeeeaaah, first of all, Plague would like to apologize to the anonymous guy going by 'eav'. She understands what you are trying to say, but she's pretty new to the whole 'writing a fic' thing in the first place, so she's doing the clichéd thing of using a (semi) unoriginal plot.

Plague: Yeah, I myself think I could do better, or at least make the plot not so similar to other stories. I'm actually considering whether to attempt a re-write after I'm finished with this, to make it more original.

Roamer: Don't worry, people, this will happen AFTER she's finished with this one. And if it does happen, this story will stay on this site unless Plague decides otherwise, so you won't lose the story if she decides re-writes it.

Plague: Secondly, I realized (with the help of some reviewers, by the way thanks guys) that I have fallen into the trap of 'over-powered main character'. I intend to fix that to the best of my ability, but don't worry, A and S-Rank shinobi WILL make him sweat (Aoi doesn't count cause he only got that rank due to the Raijin, or at least that's what I've heard, and Hidan is a slow-as-hell guy). I have an idea for a…twist so to speak …kekekekekekekeke…

Roamer: …Sis, you're scaring me…And it will not be the parasite, but that was a good idea, Yapay. We'll keep it in mind. Technically the only person who COULD create that AND want to fight Alex would be Orochimaru, and at the moment, we have no intentions of him meeting Alex…yet. And your vote of confidence is appreciated, Enigma, but majority vote says 'counteract imba-Alex'. And on that note, the Whipfist idea is good, but considering how overpowered Alex is now, I think sis'll put that off for now.

Plague: Other than that, I think that should be it other than thanking you all for the (semi) good reviews; and especially 'eav' for reminding me I could DEFINITELY do better, or make it more original. Oh and to the person who mentioned Hidan consuming pure Blacklight virus (sorry I forgot your name), while its not real human blood, it was still in the form of it, and that's all he needed to create the ritual link.

Roamer: And to all those who set this story on alert or favorites, thank you very much, but if you can, please write a review or something so that we can A: make the story better and B: fix any screw-ups we may have accidentally made.

Plague: I still think Chapter 7 is flawed in some way…

Roamer: We know.

"My name is Alex Mercer." Character speech

'My name is Alex Mercer.' Character thought

_My name is Alex Mercer._ Event

"_My name is Alex Mercer."_ Web of Intrigue speech

'_My name is Alex Mercer.'_ Web of Intrigue thought

(_My name is Alex Mercer._) AN in story (will be used rarely if possible)

"**My name is Alex Mercer."** Demon/Beast speech

'**My name is Alex Mercer.'** Demon/Beast thought

Plague: I do not own Naruto (Kishimoto's) or Prototype (Radical Entertainment's) so please, no lawyers.

Roamer: Final note, new poll, details at the bottom of this chapter, seeing as we've delayed the main content of this chapter enough with this authors note. But don't you guys DARE skip this chapter just to read the details, OR ELSE WE'LL SIC FLUFFY ON YOU!!

Fluffy: GROOOAAAAAARRRR!!!

Plague: Good doggy!

Roamer: …Are you SURE he's still a dog?!

Plague: I say so, and the name Fluffy only fits a dog.

Roamer: …No comment. Oh and final note, because Plague was too lazy ('HEY!'), she won't bother translating names to Japanese, so from now on, jutsu will be in English name, but if its an elemental jutsu, the something-ton will still precede it.

* * *

Chapter 8: Two Tails, the Academy and an Old Face

_Four days later, morning, Konoha gates_

If there was one thing that Alex REALLY hated, it was standing still for any amount of time. He would willingly go up against a Leader Hunter or heck, the Supreme Hunter even, if it meant getting away from any situation he was to stand still for a long time. Hiding in a single spot was different, that was usually when he was about to ambush someone, or was hiding from the damn Blackwatch.

Unfortunately, he couldn't worm his way out of having to guard the main Konoha gates. It was a job that all Chunin and above had to do once in a while. Granted, he wasn't the one to stand right in front of the gates to let people through, which was the job of the two Chunin, Izumo and Kotetsu. Instead, he was one of the hidden guards that would assist the two Chunin if something bad happened.

Biting back a groan, he Tendril Shifted to another location, and waved at Kakashi before settling down next to him. He waved back lazily before continuing to read his orange book, occasionally doing one of his infamous eye smiles that usually indicated when he got to a good part. Sweat-dropping slightly at Kakashi's lazy reply, Alex shrugged his shoulders before just staring ahead, absently watching the two Chunin on the ground, one of them, Kotetsu, he thought was the name, was playing with a yo-yo. Just where did he get that yo-yo…?

Sniffing quickly, Alex caught the slight scent of blood. The scent was VERY weak, but he could vaguely feel the wind blowing gently in his face. No doubt the scent must have been carried over the wind, before getting picked up by his Blood Scent. Shouting at Kakashi for him to follow, he quickly Tendril Shifted to a tree in his sight, before Shifting quickly to another, the scent of the blood getting stronger as he neared the source. Looking back for a second, he was glad to see Kakashi following quickly, although he REALLY should put that damn book away already…

Finally landing in a clearing, he soon saw the source of the blood, before making a growling noise with his throat. The small movement beside him told him that Kakashi had also arrived and, after a short glance, had put away his book while his own visible eye was narrowed on the scene before them. Three Kumo Jounin, identified by their vest and Hitai-ate were in the process of beating up a semi-conscious female who, on closer observation, was also wearing a Kumo Hitai-ate with a Jounin vest too. Kakashi stepped forward and took control since technically he was more experienced than Alex and thus 'in charge'. Of course, he was well aware that Alex could beat his ass and back in many ways, and he didn't feel like finding out the ones other than the Hammerfist.

"Maaaa…care to explain why yer beating up one of your own Jounin?" The three Jounin quickly swirled about to face Kakashi, Alex leaning casually against a nearby tree. Caught red-handed, they dropped the now fully-unconscious woman and glanced at each other before one of them looked back at Kakashi, before responding, "We're only doing Konoha a favor by getting rid of the demon!"

Kakashi quirked his visible eyebrow before continuing, "So am I right to say that she is supposed to be the one for 'compensation' for the Hyuuga incident? Then technically she is one of us now, so kindly move away from her…" Before he could finish his statement, he quickly ducked as several pointy items were thrown at him by one of the other Kumo Jounin, who then spoke up while the other Kumo Jounin got ready to fight.

"Heh, like we care. We're gonna kill the demon, and then kill YOU! The new Raikage is a fool to let the demon go to another village!"

Alex mentally groaned to himself while getting ready, 'Why is it that almost every non-Konoha shinobi I've met so far always have some form of 'high and mighty' attitude…'

"Kakashi, I'll take the ugly ones…"

"You mean you'll just take them all on, since they're all ugly."

"Gee, how'd ya know?"

"Well it was pretty obvi-"

"HEY!! WE'RE STILL HERE!!!" Random Kumo Jounin #1 finally shouted, with a large vein throbbing on his forehead, utterly pissed that the two Konoha Jounin were simply ignoring them. Of course, he realized his folly of interrupting a conversation as he was suddenly diced to bits as Alex had suddenly Tendril Shifted right behind him, Claws finishing their deadly slice n' dice. Startled, Random Kumo Jounin #2 and 3 quickly jumped away, utterly scared at the sudden appearance of Alex and the sickening black Claws that met no resistance when they sliced through RKJ #1's body.

"Now, do you think that's polite, interrupting people's conversations?"

Snapping out of their stupor, they tried to engage before RKJ #2 had to quickly dodge as Kakashi leapt into the fray, kunai nearly slicing through his neck, while RKJ #3 was pushed to his limits dodging Alex's deadly Claws. RKJ #3 managed to jump a good distance away, flipping through seals madly in the air, before landing and shouting, "Raiton: Lightning Wave!!"

Slamming his hands onto the ground, as the name suggested, a visible wave of lightning chakra shot straight towards Alex. Narrowing his eyes while shifting his arms to normal before going through hand seals of his own, he decided to give a jutsu he read up on a trial run…

"Doton: Explosive Shockwave." Smashing his fist into the ground, visible cracks spread towards the direction of RKJ #3, before stopping right under him. He raised an eyebrow, but before he could shout at Alex at the jutsu's apparent failure, the words died in his mouth as the earth exploded violently from Alex's fist, following the cracks in the ground with no visible sign of slowing down. Eyes widened, he could do nothing as the explosive force negated the lightning wave before he was blasted backwards as the explosion reached his feet, bruises and cuts forming from the makeshift dirt shrapnel.

Standing back up while wincing slightly at the slight drain of chakra from using the jutsu, draining him slightly, Alex glanced over his shoulder to see Kakashi stab his kunai into RKJ #2's chest, who's limbs were restrained by an assortment of dogs. Satisfied that the other Jounin was dealt with, he faced forward only to see a bolt of lightning, similar to the one Raizen had shot at him, reach his chest and blow right through.

RKJ #3 panted with fatigue, but was satisfied at the gory sight of the Konoha Jounin's chest blown open as the lightning bolt blasted through. He quickly got ready to face the other Konoha Jounin before a large roar of pain emanated from the 'dead' Konoha Jounin. He was utterly scared to bits as the man stood back up, while black sickening tendrils swirled madly about his chest, before disappearing to reveal an unblemished chest. Screaming with utter fear, he did the only thing a man would do after witnessing a man somehow survive a fatal wound and would no doubt be pissed at you: faint and piss his pants.

Alex could only shake his head before motioning for Kakashi to retrieve the unconscious woman while he dragged the comatose Jounin back to Konoha. He had a feeling Hiruzen would have a field day of paperwork with this small development. Oh wait, he's cheating with those Shadow Clones, so never mind…

* * *

_One hour later, Hokage office_

Hiruzen sighed to himself while rubbing his forehead, sensing another headache approaching. Alex and Kakashi had returned with the two Jounin in tow, before explaining to him everything. After just dismissing Kakashi, with a side-mission to bring the female to the hospital for observation and recovery and the RKJ to Ibiki, he faced Alex before speaking calmly,

"Well, I suppose we should prepare for another council meeting in the near future, seeing as you have just caused another controversial event that will bring great amounts of irritation onto us, Alex."

"Is it my fault that trouble always seems to find me?"

"Yes."

"…Riiiiiight…so is there anything else you wanted me here for?"

"Actually, there IS one thing you could do…"

"If it's some mundane 'compulsory' task like babysitting, then I will be very pissed…"

"…Actually…"

"…It is, isn't it?"

Hiruzen chuckled to himself, before replying, "Not exactly. You see, one of the Academy Chunin has called in sick this morning, and as it so happened, there was a suggestion that a Jounin occasionally take over classes for the Shinobi Academy…"

"And you want me to go as the 'trial run'."

"Pretty much."

Sighing, Alex gave a simple answer, "Fine, I'll go later. Anything ELSE?"

"Yes, however, this concerns the female Jounin that is our 'guest'. From what you told me of the other Kumo Jounin's reactions, I have reason to believe that she is a demon vessel of a tailed beast. And since only two of the tailed beasts have ever attacked Kumo, the two and eight tailed, and the eight tailed is sealed in the current Raikage's brother, I believe that she is the container of Nibi, the two tailed demon cat."

"…Just how long did you take to prepare that speech?"

Sweat-dropping at that statement, Hiruzen simply cleared his throat before continuing, "Anyway, due to safety reasons, and the off-chance that someone decides to attack the vessel once the information is released, which is inevitable-"

"You're gonna make me take her in as another roommate, like Fū."

Sweat-dropping at the interruption, he simply nodded, at which Alex sighed to himself before speaking, "Fine, I guess. Fū will probably be pleased that a fellow demon vessel's living with her…I better remember to get a new bed too…" Muttering silently to himself, he made for the door, paused for a moment, before he Tendril Shifted out of the window, deciding it would be faster this way.

Face-palming while ranting in his mind how none of his best Jounin ever goes out the door like a normal man, Hiruzen shrugged before reclining on the couch while whipping out the next book in the Icha Icha Paradise series, after which perverted giggling emanated from the Hokage's office.

* * *

_Half an hour later, Shinobi Academy_

"So who do you think will be teaching us, since Iruka-sensei is sick?" Kiba asked the one next to him, who was coincidently Shino.

"I do not know, but it is possible for a temporary replacement to be sent."

"What?"

"Basically, Kiba, someone will probably be filling in for Iruka-sensei for now." Ino, who was on Kiba's other side, spoke up. Sakura, sitting on her other side, nodded in agreement.

"*sigh* Troublesome…maybe I should've stayed at home, seeing how troublesome it is with a replacement teacher…" Shikamaru lazily spoke from his place behind Kiba before resting his head on the desk, Chouji munching away on his chips beside him.

"W-w-well, ma-ay b-be it isn't s-s-so bad to have a r-r-replacement t-teacher. A-after all, he c-could teach s-s-some inter-resting stuff…" Hinata shyly stuttered, before meekly retreating into her jacket…again…

"Yeah that's true, but why he's so late?!" Kiba exclaimed.

"Maybe he's just late? Or maybe he's just getting ready…" Ino tried to soothe Kiba.

"Right…And speaking of late, where the hell is Naruto?!?!"

"Y'know that's a good question…"

'Hmmf…idiots…' Duck-bu-I mean Sasuke 'coolly' thought after glancing over at the bunch of friends, before continuing to brood like a little emo.

Suddenly, the door opened, as a man wearing a hoodie and jeans walked in.

"Class 3-B I presume?" (_Plague: This is assuming that shinobi academy takes 6 years and starts normally at 6 years old. I'll explain how Naruto fails two times before main Naruto anime later in the story_)

Seeing some of the students nod their head, the man continued, "My name is Alex Mercer, and I will be temporarily filling in as your Academy Instructor. I would prefer if you refer to me for the time being as Alex-san. Sensei makes me feel old. If there is anything you are curious about, you may ask me now."

Immediately, Ino raised her hand. Referring to a name list with a picture of the student next to each name, he asked, "Yes…Yamanaka?"

"Um Alex-san, what will you be teaching us?"

"Hmm, frankly this is my first time teaching anyone, but I suppose some of the more important factors of shinobi life…first of all, what is the most important thing to a shinobi?" Alex said, half playing by ear and half referring to shinobi memories.

Most of the students seemed to struggle with the question, until a sudden crash interrupted their thinking process. Facing the door, the class (and Alex) bore witness to a short kid with sun-kissed blonde hair (_Plague: crap I forgot what's Naruto's shade of hair…ah well_) wearing a ridiculously bright orange jumpsuit. The most intriguing feature, to Alex, was the three pairs of whisker marks on his cheeks. Said kid had his eyes closed while his right hand was scratching the back of his head.

"Heh, sorry I'm late Iruka-sen-" At this, he finally opened his eyes, to see that the man at the front of the classroom was NOT Iruka-sensei. Said man had a smirk on his face, before he spoke

"Glad to see you could join us, Uzumaki. I am Alex Mercer, your temporary replacement teacher as Iruka has called in sick. Now then, I was just asking the class what is the most important thing to a shinobi. Perhaps you would like to answer?"

At this, Naruto displayed one of his face-splitting smiles while replying, "That's easy! Kickass jutsu!!"

Alex kept the smirk on his face, while discreetly moving closer to Naruto, as he continued, "Oh? And may I ask what kind of 'kickass jutsu'?"

Naruto, not noticing Alex move closer, wasted no time thinking before starting to ramble on about his 'kickass jutsu', "Y'know, awesome jutsu, blows stuff up, make you really powe- OW!" The class was suddenly startled at that, seeing Alex's raised fist, having bopped Naruto on the head, who was now holding his head in pain.

"Your answer is wrong, Uzumaki, though I suppose it can rate third or fourth most important to a shinobi. No, the most important essential thing for a shinobi is, to summarize, deception and stealth. Suppose you do have a 'kickass jutsu' as you called it, your opponent still has the ability to take you down easily by using a sneak attack, leaving you unable to fight back. Or he may deceive you, appearing to be a friend before stabbing you in the back. That is the one thing shinobi rely on the most during their missions. Of course, there are some who's strength in their respective fields helps negate any weakness they have in the deception department, but you are still academy students, and you need to learn how to use that to your advantage while you train up your own skills as you grow up."

This was mostly true; taking from foreign Jounin memory lessons they were taught, Alex improvised most of the lesson he had just gave. Of course, he did mentally deadpan a bit at how boring he had just sounded. Of course, having heard of hints of the knuckleheaded behavior of the demon vessel of the nine tailed fox, it came as no surprise to Alex when Naruto just seemingly ignored what he just said as he shouted,

"Well, I'm not one of these losers (shouts of discontent and disbelief came from the other students)! I am Naruto Uzumaki, and I will- OW!!" The class was startled again as Alex repeated his earlier action of bopping Naruto on the head, albeit a bit harder this time, if the way the kid was rolling on the ground, clutching his head with pain, was any indication.

"An attitude like that on the battlefield can be fatal. Like I said, your opponent could easily take you down after sneaking behind you while you're going on your long bragging speech about yourself. And would you care to prove your statement of you being different from your fellow students with a jutsu that is not taught in the academy?"

Naruto, having gotten back up, was ready to shout again when he paused with his mouth open as the last words of Alex's statement caught up to his ears. Finally he gave out an "Errr…"

"I thought so. Never mind, class, I've already spoken to you about the importance of stealth and deception. Now, you need to know another important factor and that is your physical condition. First, come with me out to the field and I'll explain further before you'll run a few rounds for now. If the last person gets there in more than seven minutes, you'll be doing more than your classmates." As the last word escaped Alex's lips, the whole class scrambled quickly out of the classroom, trying to get there earlier so as to minimize the chance of being last and over the time limit. In half a minute, the whole classroom was empty. Shaking his head, he focused on the field through an open window and Shifted there. Leaning back against a wall, he started counting off the minutes.

Exactly six minutes later, a whole mass of students tumbled over each other to make sure they weren't the last. They were stumbling over each other so much that Alex couldn't help but chuckle at the scene. After righting themselves, they saw Alex already there before them and most of the students' jaws unhinged themselves.

"Alright, looks like you're all on time, so no one's doing extra laps. Now then, when I mentioned physical condition earlier, I meant how fit your body is and how good your stamina is. After all, when you're chasing someone when you're a shinobi, it wouldn't do for you to tire out and, thus, let the target escape, so it's important to work on that now while you're younger. I expect that, when Iruka is better, you will, at the least, try to keep yourself fit so as to prepare yourselves for the shinobi life. Now then, I want you all to run three laps around the field for now, might as well start you all easy. Failure to finish within eleven minutes means two more laps. And if someone decides to not comply…"

Grinning evilly, Alex raised his hand and snapped his fingers once.

"GROOOAAAAAARRRR!!!"

Out of the bushes jumped out Fluffy. Alex had previously convinced Dana to lend him Fluffy while the Beast Duo stayed with her. Sure he could've used the Beast Duo, but he felt that Fluffy would provide better…'motivation'…Alex continued to grin cruelly, which was already mirrored by Fluffy, causing most of the academy students nearly piss themselves. Only the future Rookie Nine, with the exception of Naruto, who's jaw was on the floor with a deathly pale face, held their wits to themselves.

"…will get chased by Fluffy. And trust me, he likes big chew-toys. Now then, on my mark."

In the place of the Academy Students was a massive dust cloud at the word 'my', all of them racing around the field, trying in vain to finish early so as to get away from Fluffy. Sweatdropping at the sight of the students going at a speed like they were trying to break a world record, Alex shrugged to himself before he leaned against Fluffy's back, enjoying the frantic race, which resulted in a few hilarious moments.

* * *

_Three hours later, street to Mercer apartment_

After the academy students had finished within the time limit, to their immense relief of avoiding the chase by Fluffy, Alex had directed them to spar amongst themselves to find any weaknesses amongst them. Most of the academy students with shinobi background did well, with slightly fewer flaws in their Taijutsu than the civilian academy students. One of them, apparently the last Uchiha in the village, did quite well, though he did notice a few attitude problems.

After that, he let them off for lunch and after nodding to the Chunin taking over the afternoon lessons when he left, he brought Fluffy out of the Konoha gates to let him hunt as he wanted, the main condition Dana had set when she lent him Fluffy. He smirked to himself at the sight of Izumo and Kotetsu scared shitless at the sight of the plague beast, which was mirrored by Fluffy's thoughts which had resonated in Alex's mind.

Laughing inwardly at their looks of nearly fainting when he told them that Fluffy will come back later and it wouldn't do for them to just keep Fluffy outside, Alex made his way back to the apartment for lunch, as Dana was cooking. Suddenly, he narrowed his eyes when he saw a cloaked figure near the entrance of a back alley. Something of the figure gave off a sense of familiarity. The figure beckoned for him, before turning and entering the back alley.

Cautiously, while getting ready to shift his arm incase the figure meant harm, Alex followed the man into the alley. After a short walk, the figure turned back around. He still couldn't see his features, though he did notice that his left arm was gone.

"You were a hard person to find, Alex Mercer, or should I call you…Zeus."

Alarmed at both the reference of his military codename and the familiar voice, he replied cautiously, while racking his brain furiously for a face to match the voice.

"How do you know about me?"

At this, the figure seemed to chuckle, while his right arm raised himself to his left shoulder.

"Well, I'm not surprised you may not recognize me, seeing as you thought I was dead." At this, in a single movement, the figure pulled off the cloak and flung it to the side, revealing the man beneath, which shocked Alex to his core.

"How…I thought you died?!"

"Heh, you really think I would die so easily to a ripped-off copy of you? Though I did lose a bloody arm to that bastard."

Standing in front of him, albeit an arm short, was Captain Robert Cross, the Blackwatch Specialist.

* * *

Plague: HAH bet you guys didn't think of THAT happening!!

Roamer: Think you shut their brains down…

Plague: All the better!

Roamer: Riiiiight…Anyway, next chapter will explain how is he alive, what's he doing here, and what is he gonna do now.

Plague: Just so you know, he isn't going to inject another parasite into Alex this time. Also, it is only SPECULATED that the Supreme Hunter had consumed Cross, but if you do remember, I do have the DNA Absorption. Let's just say Alex isn't aware of it yet, it's there but he just doesn't know about it. Of course the Supreme Hunter is well aware of it. This is my story, so what I say about speculated stuff goes.

Roamer: And he isn't the one we were planning to use as a counter to Alex. That will come later, since we're still ironing out the details. And I'm referring to both Cross and the Supreme Hunter. And I will neither deny nor confirm the appearance of the Supreme Hunter.

Plague: And I hope you guys liked the jutsu I gave Alex! Details are below just so you know.

Roamer: Anyway, the new poll is basically a new form for Alex!! Wooooo…

*crickets chirping*

Roamer: …Never mind, the choices are Tyranid Ravenor, Tyranid Lictor and Tyranid Warrior. And yes, we are both absolute fans of Warhammer 40k, ESPECIALLY the Tyranids. BIOLOGICAL WARFARE FOR THE WIN!!!

Plague: In the future we may or may not make another of this poll, but that one will be composed YOUR suggestions. Just send us a message or review and we'll keep it in mind if we do the next Form poll. Oh and to summarize the pros, cons and abilities of the three Tyranids that will be applied in this story if chosen:

Ravenor: Pros: Speed, high damage. Cons: Fragile, can be knocked down easily. Abilities: Burrow, Acid Traps.

Lictor: Pros: Stealthy, long reach melee. Cons: Fragile, large size can be detrimental in stealth. Abilities: Camouflage, Flesh Hooks.

Warrior: Pros: Durable, wide range of biomorphs to suit different situations. Cons: Slow movement speed, biomorphs take time and vulnerable. Abilities: Crushing Charge, Biomorphs (Adrenal Glands, Venom Cannon, Barbed Strangler)

Roamer: Tyranid Warrior's biomorphs happen directly on the field, but takes time and slows regenerative speed, since the biomass will be mostly used for morphing. Plague will be adding details to each of the Tyranids' abilities for those who don't play Warhammer 40k, so don't worry if the names confuse you.

Plague: Anyway review please; I really appreciate the feedback guys. Oh and the jutsu details:

Doton: Explosive Shockwave

A-Rank Ninjutsu

Charge chakra into one's fist before smashing it into the ground. Cracks in the ground will spread in a straight line in front of the user. The cracks show the spread of the chakra from the fist when it is smashed into the ground. A few seconds later, the chakra explodes, starting from the user's fist until it reaches the end of the line, relies mostly from the exploded ground to cause damage. This jutsu is risky as the amount of chakra needed is quite high, it does not discriminate friend from foe, and can be easily avoided if the foe knows what it does. In exchange, the amount of pain one would be in if caught in it is quite high.

Roamer: Sorry guys, no omake for this update, since we wanted to get this up ASAP, and the omake would delay it further. Sorry guys!!

EDIT!!

Plague: Alright, we managed to find the time for an omake!

Roamer: We would also like to address deathwing's review.

Plague: Please understand that we're only giving Alex an 'upgrade' of sorts to his Armor Form. It won't replace it, but that's the best way to describe it. He won't ACT like a Tyranid or anything, just the form and stuff.

Roamer: And the late omake...voila

OMAKE

Naruto glared at the strange...thing that their replacement sensei had brought for 'encouragement' as he continued his laps with the other academy students. It was wierd as hell, same as their 'sensei', but he didn't want it chasing him, that's for sure.

"Hey Naruto, hurry up!!" Kiba yelled at him from in front.

"Yeah yeah, keep your pants on, mutt!!" As he finished that last word, he nearly froze up when he heard a VERY dangerous growl. Turning his head slowly, he saw the thing about to charge at him. The replacement 'sensei' shook his head, while muttering something about Fluffy being a dog and would take offense.

Naruto set a new running speed record as Fluffy chased him around the field, screaming all the way, while the rest of the class watched the spectacle, most with shock, some with amusement.


	10. Revelations, Bones and a Surprise Hunt

Plague: Chapter nine is HERE!!! And thank you all for the reviews!

Roamer: I'm pretty sure they're dying to know how the hell Cross is still alive.

Plague: You betcha!

Roamer: Is that even a real word?

Plague: So you're defying me? *prepares to snap fingers*

Roamer: …Roamer is a good boy.

Plague: Okie dokie! Time to not delay anyway further!

Roamer: We know.

Plague: Did you say something? *prepares*

Roamer: Roamer is a good boy.

"My name is Alex Mercer." Character speech

'My name is Alex Mercer.' Character thought

_My name is Alex Mercer._ Event

"_My name is Alex Mercer."_ Web of Intrigue speech

'_My name is Alex Mercer.'_ Web of Intrigue thought

(_My name is Alex Mercer._) AN in story (will be used rarely if possible)

"**My name is Alex Mercer."** Demon/Beast speech

'**My name is Alex Mercer.'** Demon/Beast thought

Plague: I do not own Naruto (Kishimoto's), Mega Man Battle Network (Capcom's), Warhammer 40k (Game Workshop's) or Prototype (Radical Entertainment's) so please, no lawyers.

* * *

Chapter 9: Revelations, Bones and a Surprise Hunt

Alex watched the man in front of him warily, especially since he thought he was dead. After all, the Supreme Hunter WAS in Cross' form when he attacked Alex on the ship. Cross was still wearing his Blackwatch uniform, while bandages covered up the stump of his left arm that still remained.

Granted, he was cautious about the whole situation, but Cross did help him in the end to stop the blasted military and that idiot Randall. Though, when he suddenly backstabbed him and shifted into the Supreme Hunter, it threw him into a loop, but he had reflected and realized that the creature must have consumed him on that day itself. His behavior the day before clashed directly with the distrustful one exhibited on the day they had attacked the USS Reagan.

"So care to explain how the hell you are still alive? And didn't the Supreme Hunter consume you?"

Cross chuckled to himself.

"It sure as hell looked like I died didn't I, since you are aware the Supreme Hunter took my form and assumed I got consumed. What you don't know is, from what some GENTEK scientists had gathered, it's possible to take someone's form by just consuming something containing the person's DNA."

At this, Alex's eyebrow twitched.

"So you're saying…after all the trouble I had gone through in New York during the incident…especially when I'm trying to infiltrate one of your bases…I could've easily just taken a hair or some blood and I could get the guy's identity and pass through your bloody security measures easily?!?!"

Cross nearly laughed to himself at how incredulous Alex had just sounded, before he gave his reply.

"Technically, yes, but since you aren't consuming their brains at the same time, you don't get their knowledge or their memories."

Alex looked thoughtful for a second, before he realized that what Cross had just said made sense. After all, memories are ingrained in your brain, not some random part of your body (_Plague: Just so you know, the weird-as-hell explanation by that scientist guy in Assassin's Creed makes no sense, so don't bother trying to raise any form argument about that, it just makes no god damn sense_).

"You still haven't explained how the Supreme Hunter got you and your arm."

Cross grimaced bitterly at that particular memory.

"That's true…alright; it was just about the time we were going to get to Randall on the USS Reagan…"

He started with the day they were going to attack the USS Reagan. He and a bunch of soldiers loyal to him had defected from Blackwatch a few days ago, due to disagreement as to how the Blacklight situation was to be solved. He had thought that General Randall was a fool to think that using a nuclear bomb would solve the infection easily. While that was true, it would be at the cost of millions of uninfected lives.

After the fallout between the two after the 'discussion' was over, Cross had secretly defected along with those loyal to him under the pretense of 'patrolling to combat infected'. Randall hadn't cared as long as he was ready by the time the nuclear bomb was activated. It didn't help either that Cross' respect for Randall had fallen earlier when the good General had the BRILLIANT idea of using the Super Soldier contingency plan. It was an abomination of a plan, but it was only meant as an emergency. He had the feeling that some weaker strain of the virus had infected the General's brain, leaving him a few screws loose.

They were about to head out to the USS Reagan when they were ambushed by the Supreme Hunter. Slightly more than half of the soldiers didn't survive the attack, while the rest had reluctantly escaped when Cross pulled rank and ordered them to flee. He had managed to scrape together vague details on the creature, even though it had only fought Alex and lost a quick while later, and had come to a conclusion that basically, Greene had simply made a cheap copy of Alex in an attempt to defeat him by using the Parasite that had previously been attached to him. After all, as some people in the past have said, your worst enemy…is yourself. Unfortunately, the same luck Alex had in defeating it didn't apply to Cross that easily.

_Flashback_

Cross gritted his teeth in pain as the Supreme Hunter had his left arm in a vice-like grip, holding him up with his legs dangling. He had kept the creature at a distance most of the time, relying on a quick strike with his electric stick before repositioning with his grappling hook while it was temporarily paralyzed. He hadn't expected a sudden explosion from a burning car to knock him off his feet however, and those few precious seconds were enough for the creature to get him.

The monstrosity spoke in a guttural tone, "I intended to simply consume you so that I may focus on my main prey, but since you were such a large nuisance, I intend to make you suffer…" With that, he made a swinging motion, as if to throw Cross. However, he kept his grip on his arm, and due to the two opposing forces, something had to give. And that something was Cross' arm.

"GrrrrAAAAAAHHH!!!"

Cross had landed roughly on his back on a car roof before landing on the pavement, but that was nothing compared to the immense pain that came from his arm tearing off due to the momentum of the swing and how strong the Supreme Hunter had gripped his arm. (_Roamer: Just so you know, it is physically possible for this to happen [Plague: At least, we THINK it is], but it would take an incredible amount of strength to pull off. But this is the Supreme Hunter we're talking about here. That, and game physics always tend to defy the laws of real physics_) Fighting through the pain only through pure military experience and training, he could dimly see two things. One: The Supreme Hunter had consumed his arm and was currently making his way towards him at a leisurely pace, as if mocking him. Two: There was a leftover Rocket Launcher right next to him, dropped by one of the Blackwatch soldiers who had stayed with him, but met an unfortunate end by the monster.

Seeing no other chance of survival, he shakily reached out for the Rocket Launcher. A looming shadow above him, however, told him he was too late. Not willing to die lying down, he shakily tried to get up despite the pain, but it was unnecessary, as a sudden spray of gunfire tore into the Supreme Hunter, diverting both their attention to the group of Blackwatch soldiers all firing away at the monster. Cross laughed to himself in his mind despite the pain, those men were too loyal to a fault, but he wasn't going to let this final chance of living slip through his fingers. Dive-rolling away from the monstrosity while grabbing the Rocket Launcher, he subconsciously knew that the recoil from firing with only one arm and resulting pain would be a bitch, as he shot the bastard at point-blank range, before losing consciousness while flying backwards, the shouts from his men dimly registered in his mind.

_Flashback end_

When he woke up, a week after the encounter, he found himself in a safe house that he and those loyal to him had set up on the possibility Blackwatch was compromised in any way. It didn't hurt to be paranoid, seeing as they were talking about a deadly virus that mutates anything it managed to clutch with its invisible tendrils as it spread. His men had done a good job in keeping him stable while he was unconscious, managing to patch him up while amputating a small part of the remaining stump of his arm to prevent infection spread and to stop further blood loss on arrival at the safe house when they recovered him from the Supreme Hunter.

After that, Cross formally dismissed the men, seeing as Blackwatch was now wiped out, good riddance, he thought, so they technically were 'free' as it were. Some stayed to help with the reconstruction process on New York, others left to enjoy the rest of their life. He had to personally kick one of them out who was too clingy to him. He knew they were too loyal to a fault…

He stayed in the safe house for a week after that, recovering slowly from the encounter while getting used to doing things one-handed. It was fortunate that the bastard didn't rip off his RIGHT arm, or else he would have had to gone through a lot of trouble to learn how to do things left-handed.

After this influx of information, Alex stood there contemplating what was going to happen now. Then he realized one vital detail was missing…

"Alright, I get how you survived and all that stuff. But how the HELL did you find me here, and how did you even GET here?'

Cross rolled his eyes, he had a feeling that question was going to come up next.

"Come on, did you really expect me, even if I HAD injected you with the Parasite to make you weaker, to let you just wander about New York unsupervised? A personal project of mine I did in the past is a special nano-bot that allows me to track a person after injecting it into him for six months. It was in the same syringe as the Parasite, by the way. As to how I get here, seeing as you're talking about whatever 'veil' it was, well, the nano-bot doesn't only transmit your location, just so you know. After that, simple matter of a final favor from one of the few competent Blackwatch helicopter pilots amongst those loyal to a god damn bloody fault to me, and here I am."

Alex sweat-dropped slightly, realizing that what Cross said was right about how leaving him unwatched was a VERY bad idea for Blackwatch. He had to hand it to the guy, he was really resourceful…Still, he steeled himself as he still watched Cross warily.

"So…what're you gonna do now, as you said so yourself, Blackwatch is done."

Cross shrugged.

"Who knows? I decided to come and check to see if you weren't doing anything crazy like spreading the virus, Mercer."

At this, Alex snorted.

"Well sorry to disappoint, but like hell that's actually going to happen. You should've known by now that I freaking didn't want to become this. And I think I'm actually gonna enjoy life as it is right now, thank you very much."

Out of all the responses he expected from Cross, the last thing he expected was for him to laugh. He just stood there, blinking in confusion, as Cross laughed for a few minutes, though for what reason, he wasn't fully sure…

Finally composing himself, Cross decided to continue.

"Well at any rate, I'm still gonna stick around for the time being. I sure as hell don't want another frigging incident to happen. AGAIN."

Alex slowly nodded his head; after all, if you were as paranoid (_Plague: More like stupidly suspicious to a fault…_) as most of Blackwatch, you'd want to keep a close watch on the guy who technically DID cause the damn incident.

"Just for the record, I didn't release the damn virus in the first place. The original Alex did."

"Ya think I'm stupid, Mercer? The original you had a stick up his ass most of the time the few times I met him while he was still working for GENTEK. You're too different to be that bloody jackass. On that note, I have no hostile intentions for you. Following orders and all that crap, especially considering the whole virus thing."

"Fine, but I'm keeping an eye on you…"

"Trust me, the person who's supposed to be doing the watching is me. And just so you know; if I see anything that might hint at you doing something that's crazy as hell OR would spread the virus intentionally…"

"You do realize that is a one-in-a-million chance of actually happening?"

"You never know…well at any rate, I'm going to need a place to sleep, so…"

"Urgh…at this rate, I might as well call my apartment a bloody hotel."

At Cross' inquiring look, he sighed before explaining, "Our apartment currently has me, Dana, three mutated 'pets', a dog, a wolf and an falcon just so you know, another roommate with special…shinobi abilities to say the least, and another who will be bunking in after recovering in hospital who is similar to our other roommate, and then you."

"I take it that there's a situation or condition of sorts for your two other roommates…"

"It's for their safety, and the leader of this village chose me to accommodate them for now since I did save them…"

"Keh, you're REALLY not the original you. You got too much of a bleeding heart."

Cross poked Alex on the chest, above his heart with the electric stick to as if to drive the statement further in, unaware that a certain weird-as-hell green spandex wearing Jounin had seen this.

"I noticed…fine c'mon, but you better not do anything…"

"Don't worry, I'll behave mys-"

"DYNAMIC ENTRY!!!"

"Huh?"

"WHAT THE-?!"

Alex thus bore witness to Cross getting his face kicked by a flying Gai. Cross was now lying flat on the ground, massaging the pain in his face with his only arm while sprouting multiple curses loudly, some in other languages, while Gai took to his nice guy pose, one foot on Cross.

Blink…blink…Alex Mercer, for the first time since he was revived by the Blacklight virus as a new man, cracked and laughed without restraint.

"AHHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!"

"GO AHEAD AND LAUGH IT UP, WHY DON'TCHA MERCER!!!"

"YOSH, Mercer-san! I have come to help you against this foe!!"

At this, both Cross and Alex, who had stopped his laughter for a moment, faced Gai, an incredulous look on their faces.

"Gai, where the HELL did you get the idea that he's an enemy?"

Gai moved away, unknowingly giving Cross the opportunity for revenge.

"Yosh, as I was passing by, I saw this man poke you with that stick of his, so I assumed that he was going to hurt you! Forgive me if I have misunderstood, Mercer-san!! For this unyouthful action, I will now run one hundred laps around Konoha on my hands!! And failing that, I will do one thousand one-handed push-ups!! And failing tha-BZZZZZZZZZZTT"

Alex dumbly blinked his eyes as he witnessed Cross, having gotten up with a murderous glare, smash his electric stick on Gai's head, which thus resulted in a hilarious show of electricity as Gai's body spasmed in multiple ways, some entertaining positions that would normally be consciously impossible. Miraculously, the electric stick stayed on Gai until Cross pulled it away, leaving Gai charred and burned. Letting out a puff of smoke from his mouth, he laughed feebly while slowly keeling over backwards before smashing onto the ground, unconsciousness already gripping him.

"Don't worry Mercer, I used the stun setting on him…Bastard had it coming for him…"

"…why didn't you use that on me when we fought, then?"

Cross stared at him in disbelief.

"Are you joking? YOU'RE THE STINKING VIRUS REMEMBER?!"

Alex face-palmed himself at how foolish he just made himself into with his earlier statement.

"Forget it, let's just go before Gai wakes up and rants about youthfulness and other crap…"

"…Lemme guess, he's the mandatory idiotic loony that's in a group to provide comic relief."

"You have no idea…though he is a powerful Taijutsu specialist."

"What the hell is that? Wait, never mind, on the way to your apartment, you're explaining everything you know about this whole shinobi business…"

"Fine…alright, let's start with their different specializations…"

* * *

_At the same time, Land of Fire outskirts…_

Fluffy was pleased. It had found many yummy animals and literally gorged itself on them. It was now gnawing away at a particularly large bone it got from a monster-sized bull (_Roamer: Don't ask…just DON'T. We had absolutely no idea what to put for this part, ok?!_), relishing the taste of it. Suddenly, it became aware of sounds that would not be out of place in a battle. Following the sounds, it cautiously poked its head out to witness a fight in a clearing with a river running along the side. On one side were three Kiri Jounin, all seemingly hell-bent on killing their opponent. This was the strange part, as it seemed to be a kid no more than eleven years old. The only distinct features that Fluffy could make out were the two red dots on his forehead and the white hair. Oh and that bone sword he just pulled out of his arm…wait what?

Fluffy watched curiously as the white-haired kid continued to fight the three Kiri Jounin with an assortment of bone weaponry that he pulled out of his own body. However, it looked as if the kid was going to lose, as he was tiring quickly.

* * *

Kimimaro Kaguya gritted his teeth as he parried another blow with a bone sword, but before he could counter, one of the other Jounin tried to take advantage, and he had to jump away from another sword strike. It was just his luck that his clan, being the warmongers they were, had made the brilliant plan of attacking the Mizukage, which brought them only defeat and their lives extinguished. As far as he knew, he was the last one left. Luckily he had escaped before his clan were obliterated, but was tailed by three Mist Jounin. When he attempted to stop and rest, they took their chance and attacked. He was fatigued enough as it was, and he may not survive, but he will be damned if he did not take them down with him.

Suddenly, one of the Jounin surprised him with a sudden punch, knocking him onto his back while his bone sword was dropped in the surprise. Quickly, the other two Jounin moved their swords to ensure his arms couldn't extract any bone weapons from his body while the first Jounin got ready to behead him. Then one of the Kiri Jounin spoke up,

"Now, we will kill you, you affront to nature!!"

Time paused for Fluffy as it dimly registered these words in its brain. Anger and rage soon bubbled within it as it growled. This human dared to call another of his kind an affront to nature, especially a pup?! Fluffy licked its sharp jaws, **'Time to feast on human today…'

* * *

**

Random Kiri Jounin #32 (_Plague: What?! Did you expect a number 1 or something?! It's called RANDOM for a reason_)paused in mid-stride to kill the Kaguya in front of him when he heard a large roar emanate from some nearby bushes. He and Random Kiri Jounin #81 and 12 turned and got ready to fight whatever wild animal that had foolishly decided to attack them. Of course, they didn't expect a monster that looked heavily necrotized to jump out. So caught up in their shock, the monster had already swiped one of its large claws, the resulting slash cleaved most of the flesh off #81's chest.

The screams of pain finally snapped #32 and 12 out of their stupor as they saw the creature stand over #81's screaming form, grinning menacingly at them. Quickly, #32 jumped back towards the river, flashing through hand seals while #12 dashed away from a wide claw swipe, coming close to decapitating him. Quickly, he took advantage of the small opening and slashed at the beast's arm, but surprise came in the form of the strange bony plates providing surprisingly great resistance against the slash, leaving only a small chip to give any indication of the slash he had just made.

Glancing over his shoulder to see #32 nearly finished, he quickly rolled to the side as the beast smashed the ground where he was standing a few seconds ago. The pure force behind it left a minor shockwave that was felt by the Jounin, leaving him with the thought that if it had made contact, he would have been crushed instantly (_Plague: Think of when Leader Hunters try to hit you with an overhead attack. When you still manage to dodge, you still get stunned momentarily_). Looking up, he saw the beast turn to face him, just as #32 finished the hand seals.

"Suiton: Water Dragon no jutsu!"

#32 called out as water from the river twisted and shifted before rising up as a long torrent, a vague dragon head with glowing yellow eyes taking form on the end, before it gushed downwards towards the necrotized creature (_Plague: Side note, I apologize if I identified the Water Dragon's appearance wrong, but the current one is what I was informed of_). At this, the beast roared before making a surprisingly big jump, belying its size, and thrust both of its large claws out, meeting the water dragon head on. There was an explosion of water from the resulting contact of the two great forces, before the creature rocketed back out of the watery explosion, impacting with the ground before it flipped itself upright, raking its claws against the ground to slow its momentum across the ground.

Just as it came to a stop, both Jounin took advantage of this and appeared beside it on opposite sides, and with a single coordinated move, stabbed their swords right between the skeletal plates into the soft flesh of the creature. Of course, they did not expect the spurting amounts of viscous fluid from the stab wounds, distracting them momentarily, the creature roaring more in fury than in pain. It quickly spun about, smashing its claws outwards, succeeding in bowling both Jounin over and away from it. Before the two could recover from the momentary daze from the impact and the pain, the monster had already faced one of them before spewing forth a torrent of sickly looking fluids.

#12 gaped in horror as the fluids made contact with the man, which made short work of him, dissolving his flesh and bones with a nauseating hissing sound, until all that was left of the man ten seconds later was a small pool of the virulent liquids that the monster had spewed out. Then, he was suddenly aware of the creature facing him, its sunken eyes glowing as if in malicious delight. Screaming in fear, he turned tail and tried to flee. 'Tried to' being the keywords, as behind the fleeing man's back, Fluffy had opened his jaws, and from the back of his massive maw, long sharp hook-tipped tendrils shot forwards, impaling the fleeing man in multiple places. Still screaming, the unfortunate man was pulled back, into the opened mouth of the beast…

Finishing its latest meal, Fluffy let out a loud belch, releasing a few sickening body fluids at the same time. It was about to move away before it was suddenly reminded of the child when he coughed violently, blots of red life fluid spilling out of his hand and onto the ground. Facing the white-haired kid, due to its mutation, it could detect a disease of some kind within in the child. At this, Fluffy felt some kind of strange feeling for the child, as he was suffering from a disease and itself wasn't affected by most of the afflictions that were carried within its body. '**Maybe creator has idea…'**

Fluffy nudged the child, before seeming to gesture to its back. It took a while, but Kimimaro realized that the creature before him may be helping him. He thought for a moment that maybe the creature would eat him, but he eventually decided that this chance was best taken, before he slowly got on its back. Once securely gripping one of the many spikes on the creature's shoulder blades, he let out a yelp of surprise as it suddenly started moving at a fast pace, heading to an unknown location.

A few minutes later, Orochimaru passed the area, taking dull notice of the Kiri Jounin corpse and the strange pool of what looked like bile, before continuing on while thinking of revenge plans against Konoha, unaware that god-like intervention had just prevented him from adding a Kaguya to his future Oto ranks.

* * *

_Twenty minutes later, Mercer residence kitchen_

Dana hummed to herself as she prepared the food for lunch. Next to her, Fū was helping her, albeit being guided along the process occasionally. She had insisted on helping her, saying that she should, at the very least, help about the house since she was staying here. After some pleading, Dana had caved in, diverting some chores to her at times. It eventually worked out quite favorably, since it got things done faster with two pairs of hands instead of one.

A spike-tipped tail slowly made its way towards a delectable-looking steak, and just as it was about to stab it and make off with it, Dana, without turning her head, snapped her arm out and smacked the tail on its 'head'.

"Gregar, no touching. It isn't even cooked yet. Now please go and find Falzar, she hasn't returned yet."

The tail dipped its 'head', as if in apology, before it turned about and rushed off, Gregar's full form revealing as it rushed out of the kitchen, then out the apartment through the make shift 'pet entrance'. Her face displayed a smirk as she recalled the details behind what happened…

_Flashback_

"Gregar, Falzar, for the LAST time, stop fighting indoors." Alex sighed as he witnessed the wolf and the falcon in the middle of one of their violent 'quarrels' again. Luckily, they usually restricted their fights in the backroom, which became the pets' unofficial room. Unluckily, however, they still made quite a bit of noise in the meantime, and their nearest neighbors, in other words the two female Jounin that lived across the landing, sometimes came by to complain, but end up watching the interesting fights between the two animals. Alex shuddered for a second in memory of the look the purple-haired one wearing some revealing clothes-Anko, if memory served right-had given him at times.

Shaking his head, he raised his head only to duck immediately afterwards as a rogue boulder-now how did that get in here, Alex wondered-flew right through where his head originally was and smashed into the wall behind him. He got back up, about to berate the two, before a shuddering groan came from the wall. Spinning about, he watched as a section of the wall gave out, tilting outwards and surprisingly stayed in one piece, landing on the ground conveniently like a ramp (_Plague: I know, this sounds really ridiculous, but I'm the author_).

Dumb silence followed, before Dana walked in and observed the situation, before she added her own two cents.

"Well, this way we won't have any more trouble with getting the pets outside anymore. Now how do we explain this to the Hokage?"

Alex sighed while rubbing the bridge of his nose. He just KNEW having pets were a bad idea…

_Flashback end_

Sighing to herself, Dana moved to prepare the other dishes, as well as cook the steak for the Beast Duo. She smiled to herself at the thoughts of the 'quarrel' the two would get in over one steak as she got another one ready for after the 'quarrel' was over. She just found their fights just too amusing.

Suddenly, she heard the front door, with sounds of a conversation going on being heard. From what she could make out, Alex and another man were talking about something about shinobi life. It almost seemed as if the unknown man didn't know anything about them, which struck Dana as strange, seeing as they were living in a 'village'-more like a small city, she mused-filled with them. Maybe whoever it was came from the outside, like them, but how did he get here? Dana decided to find out, moving towards the kitchen entrance, Fū looking in the direction of the living room inquisitively, having heard the voices too.

"Alex, who's your-"

Dana spoke before stopping in mid sentence out of shock, her eyes taking in the two figures in the living room. One of them was her brother, Alex. He wasn't the reason of her shock, but the man next to him was. He looked to be in his late thirties, and his left arm only consisted of a stump below his shoulder, wrapped in blood-splotched bandages. He was also wearing what she recognized as a Blackwatch uniform. This registered in her mind for a while before she snapped out of it; a 'blank' look appeared on her face as she approached Alex.

"Ah crap…" Alex mumbled under his breath as he awkwardly tried to shift away. Cross looked at him questioningly, wondering why he was acting like that. He found out a few seconds later when Dana caught up with Alex's attempt to escape and pulled on his ear, bringing it close to her mouth as she proceeded to yell at him.

"ALEX JOSHUA MERCER, WHAT THE HELL WERE YOU THINKING BRINGING ONE OF THE MILITARY INTO OUR HOUSE?!?! AND WHY AREN'T YOU BEATING THE HELL OUT OF HIM?!?!"

After that ear-splitting statement, she proceeded to rage into Alex's ear as Cross chuckled at his expense. After about five minutes, she finally stopped her rant, taking a deep breath at the same time, Alex sticking his finger in his ear to try and get rid of the temporary deafness. Now feeling calmer than earlier, she turned back to Alex before speaking her mind.

"Alex. Explanation. Now."

"*sigh* Alright…let's start all the way from the beginning."

Thus, Alex proceeded to use the next ten minutes to explain the whole thing to Dana, how Cross was the Contact that assisted him in his mission, how the Supreme Hunter had taken him and his squad by surprise, and ended with him arriving in Konoha. Dana took a few seconds to process this information, before glaring at Alex again.

"If that's so, then I suppose you would be _so_ kind to explain how you're ABSOLUTELY sure he isn't lying!?"

"Because I'm pretty sure about that, and he DID help us in the end."

"Even then, what's stopping him from just backstabbing you literally with _another_ parasite?!"

"Actually, nothing is, but I'll be damned if I fall for THAT again!"

Soon, they started another infamous sibling quarrel, pointedly ignoring the man next to them who was the main topic of their argument. Cross simply shook his head, realizing that this would take a while…Suddenly, a low sound akin to a scream reached his ears. Startled, he turned towards the windows where another scream, this time more distinct, was heard. Slowly, he made his way to look, while dimly noticing that the two Mercers were still arguing, and thus both did not seem to have heard the screams. When he finally saw what the cause of the screaming was through the windows, his face suddenly schooled itself into 'military alert mode'.

"Mercer, you're absolutely SURE that you didn't infect anything other than those pets of yours?"

Puzzled at the sudden question, Alex diverted his attention from his argument with Dana to face Cross, but seeing the expression on his face, he quickly made his way to him, while replying,

"I'm pretty sure about that, why do you-"

When he got to the window, he immediately understood the reason behind Cross' inquiry.

Outside, chaos reigned on the streets as large grotesque humanoid creatures wrecked the surroundings, civilians screaming here and there as they tried to escape, while shinobi of various ranks tried their best to stall the creatures' destructive path to varying degrees of success. In the distance, vague sounds indicated that this scene was being repeated through many parts of Konoha. As Alex took this all in, his eyebrow started twitching madly as he thought,

'Great…just GREAT. First Cross suddenly 'comes back from the dead'; now Hunters suddenly appear in Konoha and are wrecking the place!'

Quickly, he turned and faced Dana and Fū, who had left the kitchen to find out what the commotion was, while Cross was already rushing out the door with his electric stick already in hand and sparking, while readying to Tendril Shift out the window.

"Dana, contact Falzar and Gregar, and get them to assist in any way they can. And tell them that they use lethal force against these guys! Fū, I want you to stay here with Dana and keep her company."

Without looking for confirmation, he turned his attention back to the Hunters wrecking Konoha before Tendril Shifting, readying his Blade, while a final thought came before focusing on killing the Hunters,

'I never seem to get a damn break around here…'

* * *

Plague: YES I am finally done!! AHAHAHAHAH!!

Roamer: Plague's starting to take a liking to cliffhangers…

Plague: But they're so FUN!!

Roamer: …No comment…

Plague: ANYWAY review at your own leisure, and please try to make a constructive one so that I have an idea what to improve! Oh and for those who mentioned that Alex is getting a bit over-powered already, well, you haven't seen anything yet!!

Roamer: She's half-tempted to bring back the Supreme Hunter just for the heck of it, but we still haven't decided, so don't bother theorizing how it is coming back. Oh yes, and new trivia question:

What is the relation between Alex's first and second name (just so you know, the second name we put here is non-canon, but he does have a J. in his name)? Also state the game this relation came from.

Plague: Now then OMAKE!!

OMAKE

There were few things that truly irked Cross, and what he was currently experiencing was unfortunately one of them.

"For the LAST time, Mercer, STOP POKING ME!! I'M THE REAL BLOODY DEAL!!"

"I need to be sure you aren't the Supreme Hunter."

"And you need to poke me repeatedly?!"

"That; and it seems like Dana was right when she said it was fun to poke people repeatedly."

Eye twitching madly, he quickly swung his electric stick in Alex's direction. Unfortunately, he had foreseen this and had ducked, and instead of making contact with Alex as intended-

"Ohayo, Ale- BZZZZZZZZZZTT"

-it hit Kakashi who had just Body Flickered next to Alex's place, nose buried in his little orange book, which resulted in another humorous display of electricity as Kakashi unknowingly underwent the same process that his 'eternal rival' had just a few minutes ago. Once Cross finally took away his stick, Kakashi's uniform and visible skin were noticeably charred, while his book had somehow disintegrated due to the electricity. Of course, Kakashi could not react in the normal manner if someone destroyed his books, as he was sent off to la-la land after collapsing into a heap on the ground. Alex and Cross both looked at the twitching man on the ground, before facing each other.

"…Let's keep moving, you don't wanna be around when he wakes up and realizes his book is destroyed…"

"…I take it that the book is really important to him…"

"You have absolutely no idea…"


	11. NOT AN UPDATE Hiatus Announcement TT

Plague: Is the flame-shield ready?

Roamer: Same as the pokey-sticks.

Plague: Fluffy, Falzar and Gregar good to go?

Roamer: Fed em with extra steaks to make sure they won't get tempted by any smart-aleck.

Plague: Good, alrighty…*clears throat* I apologize to all of my faithful readers/reviewers, but I must declare a temporary hiatus on this story LET US EXPLAIN BEFORE YOU LYNCH US!!!

Roamer: Final-year exams are around the corner, and we need to focus on them. We'd rather not make any mistakes due to lack of studying or anything.

Plague: As such, we can't spend as much time as before working on the story content. We'll be lucky if we get a night or two we can use our creative juices, but we doubt it.

Roamer: Don't worry, it will only be temporary. And HOPEFULLY the only future times (like now anyway) Plague declares a hiatus will be usually mid and end year exams.

Plague: Once again I apologize to all of you who have followed this story for so long, but we really need to make sure our grades don't slip by accident. Also, Enigma, we've seen the video, and while the whole 'Tendril with its own mind' thing sounds pretty cool (it's in the 'possible powers' bin), Alex is still quite powered up as it is.

Roamer: Final note before we close, apparently we weren't clear enough about chapter 7 and 9's questions at the bottom of the page, since no one has bothered answering or just don't know the answer. They are pretty much like the number 12 question in chapter 5: you get a prize if you answer correctly.

Plague: For those who have forgotten how it works, if you manage to get the answer correct, we will inform you ASAP and request that you tell us, from the powers currently available on the profile (on that note, I have another batch of powers which need FINAL finalizing before putting up in a day), which one you would like the most, and we will put that in mind when we work on this story after our exams. Oh and for chapter 9's question, you need to answer both parts to it (the reference and the game it came from).

Roamer: Alright, Plague, get in the shelter before they lynch us now that you've finished your speech!!

Plague: KEEP YOUR PANTS ON!! I'M COMING!!!

Roamer: AT LEAST YOU KNOW WHO'S SUPPOSED TO WEAR THE PANTS!!!

Plague: GOD DAMNIT STOP REMINDING OUR READERS ABOUT MY GENDER!!! AND IN SUCH AN RUDE MANNER DAMNIT!!! *proceeds to bash the crap out of Roamer with a magically-appearing baseball bat after getting in*

Roamer: OW-OW-OW-Fluffy Falzar Gregar stay on guard for any lynch mobs that somehow manage to get in-OW-OW-OW-omake to make up for the piece of bad news-OW-OW-OW-THANKS DIRTY REID FOR THE IDEA BUT SORRY IT'S NOT THE ORIGINAL SENTENCE-OW-OW-OW-*final words before their shelter vanishes from plain sight as a precaution*

OMAKE

Alex sighed to himself as he woke up to another day in shinobi life, which would involve either killing a bunch of nameless bandits, assassinating some high-ranking official he did not give a damn about, or some escort mission that would involve some drunkard that may lie about the mission (in Wave Country, a specific bridge builder who loved saying 'super' a lot was guzzling some alcohol when he suddenly sneezed, before sobs arose due to the spilt alcohol). However, today was slightly different as he had a dream last night. The details were sketchy, but he could recall a fellow amnesiac, then something about a fight between them, the other guy using electrical powers, before he managed to beat him with great difficulty or something before consuming him, after which he seemed to start cackling madly and running around, zapping civilians with his new electrical powers (_Plague replica: This is a recorded message. Do not reply. *beep* Sorry!! Personal fantasy of mine that I would SOOOO want to see!! Run little civvies, run away from the Zapper Prototype!! WEEEE!!! *beep*)_. He shrugged to himself while filing the details of the dream somewhere in the Web of Intrigue, bringing up the name of the man for a moment: Cole McGrath. Maybe he might find him in the future, those electrical powers seem pretty useful, even if he was going to consume him to get them.

_Alternate game universe_

"Ahhh-CHOO!" Cole McGrath, about to shock some gangster to hell, suddenly sneezed violently. Both men stopped their actions, before the gangster spoke up,

"Errr...bless you?"

"*sniff* Thanks." Cole said before proceeding to zap the puddle that was conveniently under the gangster's feet. As he walked away, already tuning out the screams of the gangster, a strange shiver went down his spine, before he made a mental note, out of the blue, to avoid any person in a black hoodie who seemed to be an amnesiac. He didn't know why, but he had a feeling that if they ever met, he wasn't going to survive...


	12. Hunting Hunters, Blood and a Graveyard

*massive black hole opens in the room, before Plague jumps out dramatically while Roamer follows at a slower pace*

Plague: WE'RE BACK PEOPLE!!!

*crickets chirping*

Plague: *face-faults, before jumping back up with a twitching vein on her forehead* Not again…

Roamer: Well, it IS kind of expected, with the fact that this was on hiatus earlier…

Plague: Maybe, but oh well!

Roamer: Alright, seeing as we just got off hiatus, there isn't REALLY much to say before chapter start, except that NecroFire3000 has managed to answer correctly the question at the end of chapter 7!

Plague: The appearance of Fluffy is based off the Unclean Beast from Demigod. Link with a picture of its awesomeness will be on our profile shortly after this chapter is uploaded.

Roamer: And as such, NecroFire3000 has a free Power choice, which he chose to be Sonic Screech, which will be implemented in this chapter!

Plague: On a side-note, we will tally the result of the Monster poll when we post the next chapter, so if you still haven't voted for your favorite alien monster that will be used to massacre shinobi, then what are you waiting for?!

Roamer: Also, if people are unaware, we updated the Power list about 2-3 weeks back when we used a slight amount of free time to compile a new set of Powers and upload it.

Plague: Just a side-note, but if you happen to feel that we're bashing Kakashi, we're not, we're only using him as a convenient outlet for humor in this fic (with all the unlucky things we put him through in a few of the chapters, including this one *evil face*)

"My name is Alex Mercer." Character speech

'My name is Alex Mercer.' Character thought

_My name is Alex Mercer._ Event/Jutsu Japanese name

"_My name is Alex Mercer."_ Web of Intrigue speech/Jutsu Japanese name when in speech

'_My name is Alex Mercer.'_ Web of Intrigue thought

(_My name is Alex Mercer._) AN in story (will be used rarely if possible)/Jutsu English translation

"**My name is Alex Mercer."** Demon/Beast speech

'**My name is Alex Mercer.'** Demon/Beast thought

Plague: I do not own Naruto (Kishimoto's), Mega Man Battle Network (Capcom's), Warhammer 40k (Game Workshop's) or Prototype (Radical Entertainment's) so please, no lawyers.

Roamer: Also, to make up for the Hiatus, we have set up two omakes for this chapter, one of which is your normal end-of-chapter omake that makes or continues a situation in the chapter more hilarious in one way or another, while the other may turn into a series of omakes. You'll also be surprised by a surprise appearance of someone in the other omake, and you'll also see why we said it MAY turn into a series.

Plague: Now let's PAR-TAY!!!

Roamer: ...You're crazy, sis...

* * *

Chapter 10: Hunting Hunters, Blood, and a Graveyard

'Shit shit shit shit SHIIIIIIIIIT!!!' was the current thought process of Kakashi as he was in the process of fleeing from a trio of the humanoid creatures that were hot on his heels, due to an earlier _Katon: Gōkakyu no Jutsu _(_Fire Release: Great Fireball Technique_) on another of the creatures, which had collapsed onto the ground, but currently seemed to be regenerating, as the multiple burns on it were rapidly fading. If he had paid slightly closer attention, he would have noticed that something similar to Alex's tendrils were closing up its other wounds.

'And just when I was about to walk around thinking up new excuses for my tardiness, before these…things showed up.' Kakashi mentally deadpanned, while ducking under an attempt to crush him with a thrown piece of rock. Spread around him, fellow shinobi were using anything in their arsenal to take out the creatures, but whenever one collapsed but not fully down, two more seemed to immediately appear and occupy the shinobi before they could land the killing blow, after which it would get back up after recovering for some time. Some of the creatures did die, but their effective covering strategy was causing massive problems for the Leaf ninja.

Their speed training as shinobi was helping though, for while the monsters were rather quick on their feet, their large bodies made their blows slow enough for the ninjas to dodge. However, at this rate, they were going to tire out, and some of the chunin were already experiencing casualties, and some of the slightly unluckier jounin were sprouting various wounds from the bruising blows of the creatures. Luckily the civilians and Genin had been quickly relocated to shelters or safer locations, such as the Hokage's Tower or the Hospital, or else the casualty rate would have been much higher.

Quickly, he jumped a quick distance back, flipping through hand seals while focusing on the leading creature, before, just as it leaped at him to deliver an overhead smash, he quickly released a _Katon: Hōsenka no Jutsu _(_Fire Release: Phoenix Immortal Fire Technique_), spewing multiple fireballs right in the creature's face. While it left a few burns on its sickly pale skin, it accomplished Kakashi's main intention of breaking its momentum, causing the creature to plummet backwards and toppling the other two behind it.

Panting in mild relief and exhaustion, Kakashi quickly flipped through the hand seals for another _Gōkakyu_ to take them out, when he suddenly noticed, out of the corner of his eye, another creature leap off a nearby building, raising a fist to try and land it on his cranium. Thinking furiously, he soon realized that if he released the _Gōkakyu_ at the pile of disabled creatures, he would have no time to evade. If he fired it at the incoming creature, it had the risk of blowing up in front of him, due to the creature's use of gravity bringing him closer and closer. Dodging was also not an option, as the impact of the attack landing on the ground may disorient him, which may lead to a very bad situation

Deciding to take the risk, he turned towards it, intending to launch the _Gōkakyu_ at the monster, before a massive misshapen fist smashed into the creature's side and causing it to divert far away from its original path towards Kakashi. Taking the chance, forgetting to check who his savior was, he swiftly faced back at the pile of disabled creatures, which were just about to get back up during the four seconds the earlier events took place, and fired the _Gōkakyu_ right in the middle of the pile. Raising an arm to shield his face from the dust kicked up by the explosion, he lowered it to see three burning monster corpses. Sighing with relief, he turned around before finally registering the strange attack that had helped him tremendously earlier, and why it seemed familiar.

It was the form Alex's arm had taken when he punched him into the sky during the 'demonstration'.

Greatly relieved of the identity of the helper, he turned towards where he last saw him…before sweatdropping at the sight of Alex dropping one of his massive fists right on the head of the earlier creature stuck in a hole, smashing it further into the crater, even though it was pretty obvious it was already dead.

"Neh, Alex-san, don't you think that's a BIT too excessive?"

"Nope." was the nonchalant reply before Alex raised BOTH fists together, before dropping them down on the same spot as before, causing more of the creature's upper body to be forced into the further widening crater.

Sweatdropping again at the 'not excessive' display of violence, he used the short break to quickly observe the current situation. The situation seemed to be the same as before, albeit the shinobi side was gradually getting worn down. Casualties were slowly mounting on both sides. Turning back around, he noticed how Alex was finally done with his 'not excessive' display of violence, and had walked up next to him to also take stock of the situation. Facing him, Kakashi posed the question that may help combat these creatures.

"So, any idea what these things are or how to deal with them, Alex?"

Turning to face him, Alex replied in a slightly irritated tone.

"They are called Hunters, don't ask me yet how I know, these guys freaking piss me off. Smashing them or using swords are probably your best bet, though jutsu with a good punch in them will be useful too. Except Genjutsu, these things work solely on instincts and senses, so Genjutsu aren't as effective. Have you seen Gai? He'll be useful with his speed and strength in fighting."

At this, Kakashi leaned to the side a bit to observe a scene behind Alex, sweatdropping at the sight of Gai Dynamic Entry a newly-dubbed Hunter into the side of a building, shouting about youth at the same time, before following the crashed Hunter. Around his original location were several Hunters with cracked craniums or broken necks. Straightening himself, he just did one of his infamous eye smiles while another sweatdrop appeared.

"…He's somewhere behind me, taking care of himself, while shouting about youth, isn't he."

More of a statement than a question, Kakashi just nodded while another sweatdrop appeared. 'How the heck is Alex so perceptive anyway?!'

"*sigh* Never mind. If possible, be sure to take them out one by one, before other Hunters interfere. They have the tendency to just swarm you, usually regardless of their injuries. Also, aim for their necks, compared to the rest of their skin, its weaker there."

With that said, Alex Tendril Shifted into the air, before bringing a Blade arm straight down, guillotining the head of a Hunter about to take out a preoccupied Hayate, before proceeding to jump at another one, his off-hand transformed into a Claw. Kakashi merely sweatdropped again while watching the continued carnage machine known as Alex Mercer.

Alex was pissed. No, scratch that, he was BEYOND pissed. Once, just ONCE in his god damn new life, he didn't want to encounter Hunters wherever he went. Sure, it was at least 3 months after the aftermath of the Manhattan incident, but they STILL showed up. A small part of him suddenly pondered that Cross' appearance just prior to this may not be a coincidence, after which he filed away for after this was settled. One way or another, before he got his answers, he was going to vent his anger, and these Hunters will help with that.

A few feet away and one second after Alex finished his inner rant, Kakashi sweatdropped for the umpteenth time, ducking under a tossed Hunter, as Alex showed no sign of calming or slowing down.

'He must be really mad at whatever these things are…'

Shrugging, Kakashi proceeded to stab a kunai into the tossed Hunter's neck, before jumping away to assist other shinobi, while passing on the information of aiming for their necks.

* * *

_Several streets away, close to Mercer residence_

Fū (Cross having briefly told her what the creatures were, as he stuffed his electric stick into the open maw of a foolish Hunter, electrifying its softer insides) panted with slight exhaustion, having just crushed several of the Hunters' heads with chakra-manipulated boulders. Shichibi, being the most heavily-aligned to the earth compared to the other Tailed Beasts, had granted her the ability to easily manipulate the surrounding earth into any form she wished. One example being the multiple levitating boulders around her, for both crushing Hunters heads and, to an extent, defense. While she was still hanging on quite well, at this rate, she may have to call on Shichibi's chakra in about thirty minutes or so.

Down the street from her, Falzar, her wings alight, was literally blazing a trail through a crowd of Hunters, knocking most of them down with multiple third-degree burns, after which Gregar stabbed his tail into the ground, causing a volley of rock spikes to shoot diagonally forwards from the ground in front of Gregar, impaling the rest of the Hunters still standing. Dana had stayed in the apartment, seeing as she could not do much on this level of fighting, but not before letting Falzar and Gregar have free reign in doing what they wished to the Hunters.

She turned around, only to see a Hunter jump at her. Quickly, while a bit shocked, she caught it with a boulder in its side, before proceeding to drop another boulder in mid air, letting gravity smash its head in. This had the unanticipated side effect, however, of blood spilling from a wound on the Hunter, which splattered on Fū's face, the force of which made her turn her head to the side.

Almost instantly, she fully stopped moving, while in her mindscape, the sound of alarm bells resonated off the walls, which were slowly gaining a dark red tint. In the Shichibi's cage, the badger stared at the darkening walls, while an image of Fū's blood splattered face was visible on a puddle of water. The Shichibi took all these events in account, before letting out two words.

"**Aaaawww……shit."**

There is one thing that should be known about Fū, and it was that she had a mild phobia of blood. Not on the level that Tsunade has, but enough that she felt discomfort from seeing large amounts of blood, which is why she resorts to simply using jutsu or the Shichibi's abilities as a blunt force, hence the boulders, while avoiding close quarters if possible. However, there was an unforeseen side effect, due to the Shichibi's presence, if blood ever splattered on her face.

It was speculated by a few Waterfall ninja that due to the Shichibi's demonic chakra, a darker side of Fū's personality took over temporarily whenever that happens. She still retained most semblance of reason, such that she could still differentiate friend from foe. That does not apply, however, to her methods of using blunt force against foes, and will go crazy on her enemies, while having no qualms with accidentally harming allies during the process. The bloodlust usually lasted either until the blood was wiped off, or fifteen minutes later, which results in Fū's normal personality taking back control and usually wiping her face in disgust.

To summarize the SNAFU that would and will currently happen, Fū goes berserk and will kill anything that resembled or was previously identified as an enemy.

Growling, Fū's face snapped back up, her eyes flashing dark red for a second, before settling for a blood red color. This, combined with the blood still on her face, made for a rather frightening visage to a normal human, and seemingly no visible effect on the Hunter that tried to take advantage of the apparent weakness of the human that it attacked. It soon realized its foolishness, as a massive jagged spike of earth shot up from the ground, cleaving the Hunter in two.

A hate-filled visage now replacing the previous tired one, she swiftly raised her arm, which caused stone spears to shoot out of the ground and stab themselves into various nearby Hunters, while pieces of rock fused together around her wrists to form clawed gauntlets. Snarling, she leaped at a nearby mostly intact Hunter, claws first, intent on fueling the current bloodlust that took over her mind. In her mind, if it was possible, the Shichibi sweatdropped at the sight of the usually meek and sometimes shy Fū now in a bloodthirsty state. While he had already seen this happen a few times in the past, it was still ridiculous every time it happened. Then he shrugged to himself, before a tailed beast sized bag of popcorn magically appeared next to him. It was still somewhat entertaining seeing the usually humble Fū fighting like a madwoman. Soon the sounds of munched popcorn resounded from the Shichibi's cage.

* * *

_A few minutes later, back where Alex and Kakashi are_

Kakashi sweatdropped as he watched Alex continue to slice and dice the Hunters, after having knocking down a Hunter and had decided to see Alex's progress. For some reason, the Hunters, after noticing Alex, seemed to change targets almost instantly. He had made the slight mistake of trying to attack one of the apparently distracted Hunters, but nearly received a backhand for his trouble.

Hearing movement, he tilted his head, only to see the earlier Hunter stumble back onto its four limbs. Quickly, he moved to attack, but before he even took one step, the Hunter reared up and, on its legs, roared to the sky, but it seemed unlike the earlier roars he had heard. It seemed more like a call, but for what? However, only a few seconds later, he soon realized what it might have meant, as he heard a loud rumbling, as if a stampede was approaching.

Alex was still concentrating on beating the crap out of a Hunter that had attempted to make a drop on him, which failed spectacularly, when he stiffened as he heard the Hunter roar. While to human ears, it would sound similar to something like a call, but only he knew what it meant, as it resonated through his mind, due to being sentient Blacklight virus. The roar/call only interpreted as one thing.

"**MERCER!!!!!!!!!!!!"**

'…I have a bad feeling about this…'

This was soon confirmed as, from down the street of where he stood, Hunters were all rushing towards him, others jumping and climbing over the roofs of houses, all converging his position from all over Konoha, all intent on one thing: Taking. Him. Out. Alex only reacted by standing still, his eye twitching madly at the sight of the Hunters all heading towards him, before speaking in a dark low voice.

"Alright then, since ALL of you Hunters are hell-bent on PISSING ME OFF…"

At this, Alex concentrated hard, before both of his arms transformed into Blades, while organic armor plates slid over all parts of his body, revealing his Armored Form.

"…THEN COME GET ME!!!!"

* * *

_A few streets away_

Asuma was confused. He had been in the middle of attempting to slice one of the creatures' head off while keeping its arms away from crushing his head when a strange call had resonated in the air. Immediately after that, the creature had quickly jumped off him, before taking off in a seemingly random direction. Asuma looked around to take stock of the situation only to see that the other creatures that had been spread around the area had also rushed off in the same direction, leaving a group of mostly intact but baffled shinobi behind. Anko and Kurenai soon dropped down beside him, the perplexed looks on their faces telling him that the same thing had happened to them.

"Those creatures stopped fighting you two, too?"

"Yep." Anko replied; looking off at the direction the creatures had rushed off to.

"We should probably investigate."

Agreeing, Kurenai elected to stay behind and assist the wounded; as she had discovered her Genjutsu had not been effective against the creatures. Soon after, Anko, Asuma, along with most of the other Jounin in better condition, followed the direction that the creatures had taken off. Not long after, however, they saw Hayate and Kakashi, both staring at something down the street, almost appearing dumbfounded. As they had come from a side street, they couldn't see what it was that had their intense attention.

"Kakashi!" Anko called out, but it did not break the chronically tardy scarecrow's reverie. Annoyed at his apparent ignorance of her, she stomped up to him, before waving her hand in front of his face. The other Jounin followed up, also curious if Kakashi could explain.

"Kakashi, what the heck happened?! Why did those creatures run off all of a sudden? And what is it that's got your attention anyway?!"

Kakashi only lifted his finger to point down the street, in the same direction he was staring at, while expressionlessly saying one word in response.

"That."

Puzzled, she tilted her head in the direction he was pointing at, as did the rest of the Jounin, before a look of shock appeared on her face.

"Oh…That."

In the middle of the street, apparently all of the Hunters that were currently in Konoha were jumping over debris and the occasional corpse of their brethren, all aiming for one target: Alex Mercer. Said target was in the middle of the whole Hunter storm, his Armored Form soaking up the damage of the Hunters blows while dishing his own form of punishment, switching his arms into different forms as the situation called for, but mostly sticking to twin Blades. Of course, it was curious that they were only focusing on Alex and him alone, but the shinobi were not complaining much for the momentary break from the creatures.

Gemna Shiranui, a recently promoted Special Jounin, and one of the Jounin in better condition, stared at the sight, before slowly turning his head at the other Jounin and put forth the question he had on his mind.

"Erm…shouldn't we help him?"

At this, the other Jounin slowly turned their heads towards him in creepy unison, making him sweat, before Asuma, while nonchalantly lighting a cigarette, spoke up.

"Gemna, I know you've only been recently promoted, but even you should know when to stay out of a fight that's way beyond your own skills. 'Sides, Alex can handle himself. Most of us can attest to that."

Gemna slowly nodded to the short but mostly wise statement, before turning back to watch the apparently lopsided battle, as did the other Jounin. A few minutes later, as he tilted his body to let a Hunter with a face that was caved-in by a HammerFist fly by, Kakashi spoke up.

"A week's salary says Alex'll use something we haven't seen yet."

"Two weeks' salary says he'll be worn but not out at the end of it." Asuma countered.

"One and a half month's salary says both, and that he'll use two things we haven't seen yet." Anko replied.

"Deal."

"Deal."

* * *

Alex was slowly getting even more pissed by the second. As he cut down another two Hunters with twin Blades, another Hunter attempted to get him, only to meet its end by a swift roundhouse HammerFist. Even then, he was starting to feel fatigued, so he had to end it fast, or else they may overcome him. He quickly ran through his options and only came to one solution: a Devastator. Alex then rambled in his mind how it would not happen easily.

'I can't stand still long enough to gather sufficient biomass for the job with all these Hunters all trying to attack me…Trying to use an Aerial Devastator may not work as well as on the ground, and I may get knocked out of it too…How the hell am I…wait a second.'

Alex quickly drew up a memory of a scientist he had consumed with ease, due to him filing it away for the interesting contents of the memory, which turned out to be very beneficial for this situation.

"_Research Memo Log 152: The Hunters have been observed to travel in packs most of the time, sometimes accompanying a Leader Hunter. Studying on-field situations, it can be concluded that Hunters rely heavily on their senses and have an instinctual understanding of working together to take out a deadly opponent, as has been observed in confrontations between Hunters and Project Zeus. It should also be noted that there has been a recorded incident of an injured soldier's heavy breathing giving away the squad's position to a Hunter, indicating that their sense of hearing may be more defined than their other senses. Experimental usage of flash bang grenades on the field has proven the hypothesis to be true, even when the grenade explodes out of the Hunter's range of vision, as the Hunter collapsed to the ground almost instantaneously, gripping the sides of its head while roaring in pain, as compared to a normal human usually exhibiting discomfort instead of pain. Later study of the Hunter's corpse showed evidence of what could be best associated as the Hunter's eardrums rupturing. This information must be passed on to Red Crown ASAP."_

Too bad Red Crown did not receive the information, as he had ambushed the scientist during his search for Karen Parker.

'No time to think about that now, how am I going to use their enhanced hearing to my advantage…Wait, if I modify my vocal cords to a higher pitch, then shout, maybe it'll work…Haven't done something like this without prior consuming of something as a 'blueprint', but there's no time, or any other option.'

Settling for this, he shifted his arms into Shields and blocked a few more blows as he focused on his vocal cords, eventually he managed to get it right after a bit of changing.

'Here goes nothing…Just hope it works…'

Alex then jumped up, turning his body such that he faced the whole pile of Hunters gathered around his original location, some of them jumping up to meet him, before he opened his mouth, and willed himself to shout. He then observed the air distorting as the high-pitched sonic waves traveled through it towards the Hunters.

The results were devastating, without the Devastator. Most of the Hunters collapsed almost immediately, those in the air losing momentum and dropping like a pile of bricks, all roaring in pain. As he landed on the ground, almost all of them were on the ground, with only a few still standing, though still heavily disoriented by the Sonic Screech.

'Hmm…Sonic Screech…Not a bad name, but not now! Devastator time…' Alex thought as he gathered up the required biomass. As most of the Hunters were on the ground, he felt that the Tendril Barrage may be a waste, as many of the tendrils would just pass over them, so he settled for…

"Graveyard Spike!" Alex roared as he dug both of his arms deep into the ground. A distinct rumbling soon followed, while tremors radiated from Alex, during which a few of the Hunters attempted to get up and attack Alex with his guard down. Attempted being the keyword, as massive spikes made of biomass soon exploded out of the soil, impaling many on them, the serrated edges of the spikes cleaving through the flesh of the Hunters that were not run through.

Standing from afar, all of the Jounin had their jaws unhinged; though it was mostly unnoticeable in the case of Kakashi, but…yeah you get the point. Anko then turned to Asuma and Kakashi before speaking up.

"You guys owe me one and a half month of pay each."

Both men showed no sign on the outside; however it was a different story in their minds, as they were weeping with tears flowing freely from their eyes at the amount of money they had just lost.

At ground zero, Alex was still standing, though visibly panting in great exhaustion. However, on the inside, he was ranting to himself.

'I just KNOW Cross knows something about this, and after I'm able to move without great fatigue, I'm going to beat the damn information out of him.'

A distance away, a shiver went down Cross' back, and he had a feeling that he knew why.

'I just KNOW Alex is going to interrogate me…'

* * *

Plague: And…CUT! THAT'S A WRAP!

Roamer: …You're not a film director, sis.

Plague: I can pretend to be, can't I?!

Roamer: …Right, anyway, if you haven't noticed, this chapter is slightly shorted than the last one, but its mostly because our exams have FINALLY finished, however you guys are most likely pissed at the lateness of the update, so we rushed it for you guys. We'll do a better job for future chapters (hopefully).

Plague: Now then, with nothing much else to say, OMAKES!!

Omake 1

Alex finally decided to get moving, before Cross pulled a disappearing act on him. However, just as he was about to go and find him, Fū suddenly appeared in front of him, a few specks of blood dotted across her face. What caught his attention however, was the heavy blush that covered her face, and the slight twitch in her body.

"Fū, is something…"

That was all Alex had the chance to say, before Fū swirled a wall of earth around them, teleporting them both to a place far away from Konoha. As Alex regained his bearings, he turned back to Fū, only for her to say a few short words.

"Alex. You. Me. Now."

"Wha?" was as far as Alex got before she jumped him.

Did we forget to mention that, sometimes, after Fū drops out of her bloodlust, her hormones would have been stirred up tremendously? Needless to say, they failed to reappear until after three days. Oh wait. We did forget. Ah well. (_Plague: Closest we're gonna allow Alex get laid at this time, HAHAHAHA!!_)

Omake 2

Alex's voice: "Prototype Analysis."

_Red Crown Military Base_

Standing on the platform near the massive screen, was a grinning Gin Ichimaru. He spoke in his usual mocking tone, still keeping the fox grin pasted on his face.

"Ohayo! And welcome to Prototype Analysis, where we give ya readers details of Alex's powers!"

At this, he brought up the large pointer stick he was carrying, before turning his head and taping the stick on the screen, where pictures of Alex's Glide in action was soon displayed.

"Today, we'll be talkin' about Alex's Glide ability. Alex Mercer has the ability ta glide momentarily in the air, which is possible due ta this!"

A close-up picture of Alex's limbs appeared, where shifting tendrils could be seen.

"By manipulatin' the biomass in his limbs, Alex can create a 'web' of tendrils that increases the area affected by air resistance. That is why, when first used, Alex actually flies up a bit, as the air resistance lifts him up before gravity starts workin' again. Because of the 'web', it lets Alex stay in the air longer due to more air resistance, allowin' him ta stay in the air longer then usual."

Alex suddenly Tendril Shifted into the area, turning towards the screen for a second before returning his gaze back to Gin's grinning face.

"…Aren't you from a different anime? What are you doing here?"

Gin's grin, if possible, seemed to stretch wider.

"Well, at the current moment, I'm not needed in the current anime arc, something about the Zanpakutō, and I just so happened ta read a job advertisement fer this, and since I wasn't needed fer me Arrancar Encyclopedia segment fer now, I thought I might as well give it a try! Well, that, and the pay's good."

Gin then turned back to the camera, Alex seemingly nodding in acceptance before Tendril Shifting away, before speaking again.

"Welp, that be all fer today's episode! Hope ta see ya guys again!"

Gin raised his arm, before waving goodbye to the camera, his smile still not leaving his face.

"Bai bai!"

(_Plague quick note: While YES I am aware that the manga is much further than the anime, but we felt it would be more relevant if we used the anime. That, and Gin is freaking COOL in his Arrancar Encyclopedia segment!! Oh and expect cameos from other sources, not limited to Bleach. And we do not own them nor Bleach_)


	13. AN:Bad News

Plague: Alright, as you have probably noticed, we have bad news for you guys. Well, two pieces of bad news in fact.

Roamer: First, we apologize for the massive delay in the first place. We had to participate in a school compulsory program which made us have to WORK for two weeks. Severely cut into our time that way.

Plague: Now, first piece of bad news. The next chapter was NEARLY complete yesterday, and we would have finished and posted it today. HOWEVER...

Roamer: Our imbecilic SOAB of a cousin had the OH SO BRIGHT idea of downloading something (we still haven't confirmed what is it) which had the EXPECTED side effect of a viral infection, which made it IMPOSSIBLE to access our (currently) corrupted files. And to make matters GOD BLOODY WORSE...

Plague: He also used our thumbdrive, which had the backup copy of the next chapter, without our permission, and TOOK it with him back home, just for his stupid downloaded thing. We highly doubt that the backup copy will remain uncorrupted by the time we get it back. The reason why we haven't called for his blood yet is actually the second piece of bad news.

Roamer: Due to the school program, our three week vacation to China had to be postponed from those two weeks, and so, we will be leaving the house very soon.

Plague: Not only that, after the vacation, it'll take a while before we are able to use our laptop again, so it will be longer.

Roamer: We originally intended to upload the chapter today, before working on the next chapter during our vacation, but Murphy's Law is a god damn bitch.

Plague: We apologize GREATLY for the inconvenience, and how the next chapter that you guys have awaited for quite a while will have to be delayed FURTHER.

Roamer: We also hate Murphy's Law very much.

Plague: They got the idea already.

Roamer: Anyway, if you are feeling sufficiently pissed in any way, flame away. We (kind of) deserve it, and we'll only find out after our vacation anyway.


	14. Announcement: Rewrite

Plague: Alright guys, I made it known in Arcana Summoner, but I might as well make it official...

The Prototype Shinobi will be undergoing a rewrte.

In the beginning, when I first started, I only just wanted to try and get it as far as possible. Outside circumstances, however, have changed that. I have lost almost all inspiration for it for a while, and I've been putting this announcement off just to try to get around it, but I can't.

Going over it again, I've come to the conclusion that I've rushed Alex's powers too fast, making him THIS close to a Gary Stu already, as well as downplaying the shinobi (which rang a few bells in my head; they're the important part of the second series in the crossover, why the hell am I downplaying them?).

I'm going to start over, and I WILL put more focus on the shinobi (which I unfortunately had ignored in favor of Alex), as well as downplaying Alex's owning potential (Yes he will still be powerful, but not as fast/devastating as I've portrayed him so far). Alex's powers will be refreshed, but they will follow the same system as before, except that I'll be slowing down the frequency of the poll's update.

Another thing to note is that I've finally realized the problem with having a harem story: short of divine intervention, Alex won't be able to do that due to his nature, ESPECIALLY with multiple women. I will mention, as well, that Fu and Yugito will have to stand aside, as the problem with using the unimportant Demon Vessels is that we don't know ANYTHING about them. I may or may not include them sometime into the rewrite, but my decision stands. The rewrite will only have one pairing with Alex, although I'm open to suggestions.

I apologize again, but it has to be done. The original will be kept on the site, so that you guys have SOMETHING to read while I'm doing the rewrite (which will take some time, as I am more focused on Arcana Summoner).

Go ahead and flame me, I deserve it.

P.S. Yes Numbuh six-sixtysix, its Alex and Joshua Shepard. I will keep you in mind when I work on the rewrite, and you get first shot at his new first power.


	15. VERY Bad News will be unavailable

Plague: ...Yeah...I'm just using this cause this is...a really important thing.

Ok basically, we were holidaying in Chile a few days ago. Guess what? A 8.8 Mm earthquake happened on the 27th, and...Roamer got injured in it. NOTHING SERIOUS, but he'll be out for a while.

...Yeah...This is just to...let you guys know we won't be online for a while...yeah...

SHORT EDIT: The only reason I came online for that short time to post this (which also applies to this edit) was because Roamer, while he was (and still is) in the hospital, SPECIFICALLY asked me to do so, for the fact that you guys deserve to know, as this would be technically (and now officially) cause a delay in our story updates, and he was concerned that you guys would be worried about that delay.

And do you think I've NOT been helping him?! I've been by his side for as long as I could during my free time, and it just hurts me that he wants to just _run_, but he just CAN'T in his current state...He cried about that one day, and all I could do was try to comfort him, and tell him that he will get better (which is true, but it still hurts that in the present, he still can't).

Also, I'd like to point something out for you. Roamer isn't my friend.

HE.

IS.

MY.

YOUNGER.

BROTHER.

...I know you said you didn't intend to offend me, but get your facts straight before you say/write stuff...you could still hurt others unintentionally...


End file.
